Hi again everyone! Welcome back to Part II of my nested hearts post. I have a folder of Valentine project ideas that I have been compiling since my kids were in grade school. I pulled it out recently, and it was in looking through the file that I ran across these nested hearts. The original instructions showed attaching a Tootsie Pop up the middle of the heart to give as a Valentine. Gone are the days where my kids need class valentines, but it’s kind of a cool idea nonetheless.

I ended up using the nested hearts for something entirely different. I love to give my kids a little something for Valentine’s Day, and so I had decorated the fronts of plain white gift bags to use for their gifts. The bags were definitely “valentine-y”, but they lacked that extra pizzaz to make them special. When I saw the instructions for the nested hearts, I knew I had found my pizzaz!

These next few pictures will show you my step-by-step process for decorating one of the bags:

Heart stencil

Decorative paper

Ruffled ribbon trim for the finish ( I definitely have been watching way too much of the Olympics!) As I said earlier, the bag front was OK, but it lacked personality and pizzaz. So I added a nested heart to the bag, and look at the transformation:

Talk about pizzaz! The nested heart was exactly what this bag needed–it brought the bag to life! I was so excited, I could hardly wait to put the heart on the other bag!

Here is a side-by-side picture of both of the bags, along with the coordinating Valentines I made. I couldn’t be happier with how these bags turned out, and I am so glad that I saved and came across these nested heart instructions!

Riding high on the success of the gift bag decorations, I decided to make a larger version to use as a table decoration for our Valentine’s Day dinner.

The original nested heart is in the middle, so you can see that the others are quite a bit bigger. I followed the same steps, but I started out with 8″, 9 1/2″, and 11″ strips of paper.

I love setting the table for holidays and special occasions, and I think the nested hearts are the perfect addition to the place settings for our Valentine’s Day dinner.

Speaking of Valentine’s Day dinner, I found a recipe for what I think will be the perfect dessert that I wanted to share with you. We will be having a mini chocolate cream pie and I will link the recipe at the end of the post. It uses a 6″ pie plate instead of a regular sized one. Here is a comparison of the two pie plates side by side:

The 6″ pie plate is the cutest thing ever, and I think it will make the perfect amount of dessert for my husband and I. I am hoping that it will take away the age old battle of not wanting to eat an entire pie but not wanting it to go to waste either. With a mini pie, there won’t be a lot left over.

Thank you for stopping in again today. Have a good rest of your week, Happy Valentine’s Day, and, as always, remember:

“May the waves kiss your feet, / the sand be your seat, / and your friends out-number the stars.”

-C-

Recipe: http://www.dessertfortwo.com/chocolate-cream-pie-2/