Red and White Heart Decoration

A Christmas decoration with a bit missing turned out to be just right for a decoration we can hang all year round.

After Christmas the house can seem a) super tidy or b) a bit bare.

We have a door going from the kitchen to the rest of the house, it's always open and apart from a rather lovely chicken door stop it's a bit plain. I was thinking in January that a wreath of some sort might look nice, maybe something with red flowers (we have red accessories in the kitchen) so I was checking out the sales of Christmas decorations in the shops to see if I could find anything suitable.

We have a shop in the UK called The Range, they basically sell everything apart from food and clothes. By the time I got there their Christmas decoration sale was pretty dire but I did find this:

It was originally £3.99 and obviously had something hanging in the middle though I have no idea what. I assume something Christmassy otherwise it's not really very festive. I asked if it would be reduced further as it was not all there and got 80% off - I got it for 80p, bargain!

I removed the little metal thing from the centre (I looked them up and it's called a "screw eye" but that seems a bit wrong somehow) and the rope that reminded me of a hangman's noose.

Then I set about decorating it somehow.

I tried to cut a red check scrapbook paper to fit the middle section, I thought I would just glue it on. After 2 attempts (thankfully with scrap paper - no scrapbook paper was harmed in my experiments!) I had to abandon that idea. It was just too hard to get a good fit all the way round.

I thought maybe a really simple design drawn on would work better and that's when I thought of my nail varnish pens. 

I doodled a few ideas then just drew an easy line, leaves and dots design on with the nail varnish pen.

Turns out it's hard to hold a nail varnish pen and take a photo at the same time - sorry!

I imagine you could get a similar effect with a fine permanent marker pen or paint and a fine brush, I was just using what I had.

A length of red ribbon to hang it and it's done. 

I had already popped a drawing pin on the top surface of the door for a Christmas decoration so I was able to just reuse that, it can't be seen at all and I'm not peppering the door with holes.

It's got a bit of a Scandinavian feel to it I think, definitely not Christmassy anyway.

If you decorate your house for Valentines day then on sale Christmas decorations might be a great source of materials. In our house we don't really do anything more than a card and chocolates/flowers for Valentines day so I'm planning for this to stay up all year round in a "pretty decoration on the door" kind of way. 

Julie

I'll be sharing this project at these link parties