DIY Valentine's Day Heart Pennant and a Blogger Card Swap

Happy Monday!  Did you all have a lovely Valentine's Day weekend?  My husband ditched me all weekend to go fishing with the guys and Mac and I spent the next four days battling the stomach flu and puking on each other.  So romantic, huh.  Valentine's Day just ain't what it used to be.  :)  Ha ha.  Ok, it was kinda awful, but we still managed to have some fun.  We went to my parent's farm Friday night and let them take care of us all weekend, so at least there was help cleaning up all the vomit.  They were saints and spent an inordinate amount of time doing our laundry (repeatedly), making us toast and dealing with our whining.  Mac got to chase opossums through the yard and terrorize their dogs.  Our dogs got to run around and play, with only one of them getting puked on (poor Mally).  And I managed to get through half of 1 of the 17 unread magazines I brought (wishful thinking).  

Anyway, one of the big highlights of Valentine's this year was getting to make our own Valentine's cards and participate in a little blogger Valentine card swap.  Organized by the fabulous Erinn of Strawberry Swing and Other Things (who is totally rocking this whole mom of two thing and is my new inspiration) organized a swap with 12 bloggers participating, all with little ones around the same age.  The idea is that the kids would make a Valentine for each of the children and the moms would give a small (under $10) gift to another mom/blogger.  That way all the kids would have lots of mail (because aren't all toddlers (and moms) obsessed with getting mail?) and the moms would each get a little something special.  Win-win.  

Mac and I were excited to get started on our Valentine's cards.  I wanted to make some kind of little pennant banner with hearts.  He wanted to paint.  So we joined forces and came up with the idea to do a three flag pennant banner with hearts, one of which would be hand-painted by Macadoodledoo, himself. 

Obviously he had a great deal of fun with the paint.  He loves purple, so I had a hard time getting him to use any other color, but he did pretty well.  There was only one incident of him trying to eat the paint, which I managed to stop before it got too bad.  

I don't know about you, but I think he's got real talent.  Later that night, Ryan and I went to a wedding reception at the St. Louis Art Museum and I think Mac's paintings were better than quite a few of the ones we saw on exhibit there.  Just saying.

Next I let his paintings dry and then cut them into hearts.  It nearly killed me to destroy such beautiful masterpieces, but it was for a good cause.

 Next, we cut out some additional hearts from random scrapbook paper in various colors and patterns.  

 Then we glued one heart on 1/2 of a piece of Kraft paper and punched holes in the top for the string.

Add the string...

And then finish off with a few pieces of ribbon in between the flags. 

Voila!  A DIY three-flag heart pennant banner to hang in your home.  

We signed our names to the back and into the mail they went!  

Within a couple days, our mailbox was filled with Valentine goodies from all over the country!

 What a spoiled kid, getting Valentine's from places like Texas and California and Michigan and Virginia!  

 We managed to take a short break for our sickness to open all our Valentine's cards and play with the goodies inside.

 Such a fun assortment of cards!  

Are these not some of the most adorable Valentine's Day cards you've ever seen?

And of course, I got an awesome little surprise from my Valentine - Vanessa at Sunflower State of Mind.  I am madly in love with this amazing raspberry and gold infinity scarf and cannot wait to wear it out!  Thank you so much, Vanessa - you have excellent taste!

My secret Valentine was Emily over at Dear Owen.  You'll have to hop over to her blog to see the box of goodies I sent her (and wish her congrats on their newest bundle of joy, Claire).  

Feel free to check out the rest of the Valentine Day blog swap posts here: 

Erinn at Strawberry Swing and Other Things

Natasha at Schue Love

Julie at The Girl in the Red Shoes

Natalie at Nat Your Average Girl

Emily at Dear Owen
Veronika at Veronika's Blushing

Erin at Hello Erin

Colleen at Meet the Sullivans

Vanessa at Sunflower State of Mind

Megan at Hello Newlywed Life

Natasha at Hello Happiness

Sara at Running from the Law

Of course, Erinn has something up her sleeve for St. Patrick's Day, which I'm excited to share with you.  Hint hint - start rounding up your favorite St. Patty's Day recipes and join a link-up to share your recipe with another blogger (maybe someone new or an old favorite).  I hope you'll join us!  Details to come!