a valentine's day diy

Nesting is in full swing. My poor little sewing machine has steam rolling off of it. Burp cloths are flying in all directions. Even made 'mini' ones for Belle. 

When I saw this  valentine banner made by the adorable, danielle, at Take Heart, I was in love. I told myself I didn't have time. Or energy. Forget about it. 

I could not.

A flag banner, made from vintage pillow cases, with scripture on it....oh man, its so full of all of my favorite things, I had to dive in. And it just so happens that I have several pillowcases with recent holes that I've been saving for...something.

It took two evenings...maybe an hour each night.

You can check out Take Heart for her tutorial. I was too busy (read...too excited to get it done) to bother with taking pictures of the step by step.

But really...it was so easy.

Just create a template to trace your flags (I fold mine in half and draw half a flag, so its symmetrical).

Trace. Cut. 

If you're not the sewing type, you can hot glue the flags inside the 1/2 inch double biased tape.

But I wanted something that would be sure to hold up through the years, so I decided to use a zigzag stitch to secure the flags inside the tape. I also cut out little hearts and stitched them on (with the machine) the flags between each word.

I had left over chip-board letters that I hot glued onto the flags (though there are NEVER enough vowels, so I had to 'create' some 'e's' from other letters. You can hardly tell, and I didn't have to spend any money).

Done.

 What a beautiful way to ground this 'fluffy' holiday, to drape our space in His word which brings life and wisdom and truth. Because after the roses and chocolate, life gets hard. And sometimes loving each other deeply looks much less romantic than one might hope. But above all...above all love each other deeply. Even when it hurts and we're messy and forgetful and insensitive.

 It also so happens to be a great way to help my children memorize scripture. We've been tackling a verse each month (I'd like to bump it up to one a week, but we haven't yet). Above all (point up at the banner hanging above), LOVE each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

 Love covers over. 

I am so thankful for the ultimate covering - Christ's love poured out and covering me, clothing me in His righteousness - so that I can be called a daughter of God. And it goes on and on. I can't tell you the people in my life that have covered over my offenses with the love and grace He has put in their hearts toward me. Love covers over, and in that covering, it heals, restores, infuses hope, makes us whole.

It helps us to become the self we all wish we could be.

 And as you can see by Judah's little face, some days, we're going to need a whole lotta love to cover over the holes in our heart. Thank goodness his mama has such a lovely banner to remind her of such!

xoxo

ejk