Vintage postcard garland and Valentine's wrap-up

Oh, my poor little abandoned blog! I'm not sure I've ever gone so long without posting but truly I haven't had much to say. I've been sick for quite a long time now due to germs Maren toted home from preschool and I'm just now feeling a bit better. At the same time, The Mister has been recovering from surgery and even the dog has an ear infection, so productivity levels around my house have been hovering around 0%. If it couldn't be done while laying on the couch under a blankie, it didn't get done at all.

I know we're two days past Valentine's now but I did want to show the one and only thing I've crafted in the past three weeks. My mom and I saw some cute garlands in a boutique for around $35 each and we knew we could do them ourselves for much cheaper. We were right--we already had everything we needed! So nice to do a project without having to run to the craft store first.
First, I found a few vintage postcard images from this awesome Flickr group. Next, I resized them and printed them out onto matte white cardstock. I just guessed on the size, making sure to get the approximately even (the original files were different sizes). Next, we ran them through the Xyron and adhered them to sheets of chipboard. We covered the backs with pages torn from a very old dictionary just to make them a bit more finished.

We punched holes in the top corners using a Crop-a-dile, then embellished the edges with sparkly red pipe cleaners, which we glued on using Zip Dry glue. We tried a few other glues (hot glue, tacky glue) but the Zip Dry was perfect because it dries quickly and is a bit thicker in consistency so it didn't run all over. As a final touch we embellished the images using a glue pen and some sparkly iridescent glitter. I tied mine together with pink Martha Stewart seam binding ribbon.

It was an easy craft with satisfying results, perfect for a gloomy day and not so involved that we couldn't visit while we glued. This garland could easily be adapted for any holiday you can find vintage postcard images for, which thanks to Flickr should be just about any of them! I don't normally decorate for St. Patrick's day but I think I have some sparkly green pipe cleaners kicking around my craft room, so maybe I need to make a St. Patty's garland just for fun!

Our V-day was nice, even though we weren't feeling well. We beat the crowds by going out for sushi on Friday night, the Mister brought me an enormous, gorgeous bouquet of flowers and Maren got a balloon that is bigger than she is.

Now that I have a bit more energy I'm hoping to get back to doing something interesting enough to blog about! Until then, take a look back at the cute thing I received for last President's Day. It's still one of my top 5 favorite things I've ever received in a swap!