The Valentines M&M's...

Valentine's Day 2001 my hubby and I had just gotten engaged. J wanted to make my day special so that day he had come chocolate roses sent to me at work. Not only were there chocolate roses, but the chocolate roses were in a really pretty bud vase with Valentine's M&M's (a.k. white, pink, dark pink, and red) filling the bottom of the vase instead of what would normally be water. Cause they were chocolate roses so they didn't need to be watered. ;) That night I got home and J had gotten a key to my apartment from my friend who lived in the same apt. building (she had my spare key, I had her's, incidentally, she is now my Sister-In-Law, she is married to my husband's brother, she is the one who introduced hubby and I, sorry, off course there). Anyhow, J had gotten the key and gone upstairs to my apt. and made me a really romantic dinner and gave me a hummingbird music box (Handblown glass, hummingbirds have a special meaning to me). The music box played the theme song to Somewhere In Time (which btw, is the bestest most romantic movie of all time!) which is one of my favorite movies. How sweet huh? To top that off, every Valentine's Day since (except when he is deployed or away at training) he has made me the very same dinner. :) I'm a lucky gal!

So anyhow, (if you are still with me, bless you! ;) lol) This Valentine's Day since Hubby and I are saving up for our upcoming adoption we aren't spending any money (o.k. so he already bought me my super cool camera, but that was before we decided to adopt). I still wanted to do something special. I could do a coupon book, you know where I give him coupons he can cash in. O.k. so that would be good but I didn't want to do the same old same old coupon book. I wanted to do it a little different. Then, that first Valentine's Day flashed through my mind. I could do chocolate roses with M&M's but how to incorporate the coupon book idea. I could do tied to each rose a "coupon" of sorts. O.k. but we are both trying to eat healthier so chocolate roses AND M&M's..... hmmmm.... I decided that instead of doing the chocolate roses I would do handmade flowers. So the Nested Flowers technique sprang to mind but how to make an embellishment into an actual flower. AH HA!! I've got it!

First I made my flowers by cutting my different sizes of circles (out of Rose Red DSP from SU) using my Colluzle cutting system that I got when I was an SU demo. Then I distressed the edges of the circles using the side of my scissors. Next I punched a hole in the center of each circle using my crafters tool kit (SU). I then took some floral stem wire and using the plier things in my crafter's tool kit I made a small loop at one end. Then I stuck my brad through that and threaded each circle of the "flower" through the floral wire and then the brad. I fastened the brad to hold it all in place and then wrapped floral tape around each stem to finish the look off plus give it some support. I then used my tag punch (SU) and punched out some tags then stamped the Always stamp from Terrific Tags (retired SU) using Rose Red(SU) ink to coordinate. On the back of each tag I wrote my coupons. Some are a movie night with movie of his choice, a day playing video games (without me nagging him to help me), a week without housework, a day to do wood working (again without me nagging), and the list goes on and on. I tied each tag, or rather coupon to the stem of each flower using some ribbon and then put them in my bud vase. Then I filled the vase with Valentine's M&M's and tied a ribbon around the vase.

There are 14 flowers, 1 for every day till Valentine's Day. He will still get some chocolate without having the chocolate roses added in (although I'm sure he would have liked that too). I hope he likes it! I think he will really like the coupons, ecspecially the ones where I don't nag him for a whole day. ;)