Be My Valentine {Garland}

When we lived in Indiana, we lived on "St. James Place".  Of course, with a Monopoly-style name, you've got to be a bit "gamey" with your decor, right?  So our living room had a game theme.  

When we moved to ND, we decided to keep the game theme going in our basement family room.  

As I was browsing Pintrest one day, I noticed heart garland posted here with a link for Etsy.  The cost was $17 + $6.50 for shipping.  So what did I do?  Yep, you guessed it, I made it myself... for $5.00!

I bought two kinds of Valentine ribbon for $1.99 each.  I chose to use a white ribbon with red hearts for the main ribbon and a simple red with white stitching for the accent ribbon.

I bought a pack for cards at the dollar store.  I had planned to look at Goodwill for cards, but with $1 for a new pack, who can argue?  

I took a joker out of the deck to make a template.  I punched two holes in the top of it.  Liking the placement of my holes, I then used the joker as a template for all the heart cards.  I punched holes in each of heart cards and strung them on the white ribbon.  

I put them in number order (it's the OCD in me), but the example on Etsy had them randomly placed-- suit yourself.  I threaded them through the white ribbon as I was going along and easily shifted them as needed.  

After I was finished threading cards, I decided to cut small pieces of the red ribbon and place them between every other pair of cards.  I believe the example had contrasting ribbon between every pair, so, again, suit yourself.  

I used some pieces of packing tape to tape it to the top of the mantle and there you have it-- adorable Valentines garland for $5 (with plenty of ribbon left over) all while I watched an episode of "Parenthood" on Netflix!