Heart Day Tree

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays. Not for the overpriced flowers or goopy jewelry commercials. I like it because of all the aisles filled with red and hearts.

When we were little, my mom had a ‘tree’ (branches sprayed white) to hang Valentine items from. I can remember helping to decorate it. This year, I finally made one for our home.

MJ was super excited because he is a big fan of sticks in general and often encourages me to find more ways of incorporating sticks into our house. (read: he hates sticks)

The Heart Day tree = more sticks! Score!

With a can of white spray paint, I coated the branches I found (in my yard).

I purchased some dry floral foam to insert the sticks into. (Six blocks of foam were cheaper than one block of foam so I have leftovers for more stick projects.)

As for a base, I found this box I painted for MJ for another Valentine’s Day during college.

(He’s not that sentimental. His lovely mother saved it and while we were going through a treasure trove of other MJ memorabilia, it was one of the few things that made the cut.) However, the cardboard was too flimsy and didn’t hold it’s shape.

Then one day, while perusing the sale items at Michaels, I found a boatload of wooden, Christmas-themed boxes marked at 80% off. I snatched up quite a few for dirt cheap, including this shape which I thought would make a sturdy base for the tree.

I coated it in white and used a light molding paste to create a heart texture on the outside.

Then I painted the entire thing in a couple different shades of red for some dimension. After the paint dried, I sanded the hearts a bit to bring out the white and then painted each heart silver. I added a little silver leaf to each heart and finally coated it all in Modge Podge.

I filled the box 2/3 of the way with foam and placed the sticks where I wanted them. I had rocks from a plant I grew last year and they worked nicely to cover the foam.

Done and done.

Take care!

-amy c