A Paper Post
V A L E N T I N E ' S D A Y
is a week away
and brings thoughts of
France... Land of lovers.... French lovers.... Amour (love)...
For my readers who love all things French, I created some French valentine printables for you to use as a banner or as a bouquet... or, to give away to friends... or LOVERS.
The shelf in the stone wall in the kitchen changed from a Christmas arrangement to a Valentine's arrangement with four easy steps.
- Replace the hand carved wooden blue Santa with a white bird-topped ceramic bottle holding a round moss and hydrangea petal heart ornament.
- Replace the large preserved boxwood bundle with a heart-shaped boxwood topiary.
- Add a large and a small paper mâché heart with French script.
- Add a handmade blue AMOUR banner to the Chenonceau print.
Each of the letters has a fleur de lis, and there is sixth heart with a LARGE fleur de lis that I use in creating labels and tags for Botanic Bleu.
I am working on creating the entire alphabet with a fleur de lis as part of each of the letters and have a question about the best size for each letter.
What size do you like to use in making banners? That is, what width and height do you like for each letter's card?
The dimensions of the heart-shaped letters are 3.5"by 3.94" Should the dimensions be larger?
The first set I made was smaller and is a good size as a bouquet in a stand with hearts to hold cards.
Here they are on the pine chest at the end of the fireplace, just around the corner from the stone wall with the Chenonceau print.
A vintage blue glass holds fresh white stock flowers from the grocery store. Their fragrance fills the air. The little blue glass came from a flea market in Paris. An inexpensive memento from Paris is the perfect shade of bleu for my French-inspired Valentine arrangement.
Loving blue is sometimes hard. Valentine's Day colors are traditionally red, pink, mauve..., not blue.
Q: So, what's a person to do?
A: Make your own Valentine's Day banner in the colors you love, and add a fleur-de-lis here and there for more French love.
Then share the AMOUR banner in French bleu for all your readers who also love bleu and cannot find bleu Valentine's decorations.
A single antique white hydrangea blossom fills the French-style flower urn. Yes, that is ONE blossom.... from the grocery store.
There is a handful of pale, pale bleu petals and red-speckled rosy petals.
TIP: The single hydrangea stem is standing in a tall water-filled fast food plastic cup inside the ceramic urn.
Please let me know in the comment section below what your preferred sizes for banner letters are.
If you make a banner for your home using my free printable AMOUR, take some photos, and share them with a tag to Botanic Bleu so I will not miss seeing them. Be sure to share all your Valentine's photos from Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and your blog. I get my best ideas from seeing what others are doing.
Don't forget to download your free Valentine banner printable. There is a bleu version, and for all my readers who love red for Valentine's decor, there is a red/rosy version.
Read about how I made the moss heart with hydrangea petal.
