February 13, 2013

The Key to My Heart Vignette

On this Valentine's Eve, here's a romantic vignette
based on the quote by Oliver Wendall Holmes:
"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness".

Keys have had an attraction for me for the past several months;
I'm not sure why. I gathered them together for this 
Valentine vignette along with some other heart-themed items.

The framed chicken wire that served as a card holder at 
Christmas now holds paper wreaths, book page 
heart garlands, Valentine ephemera and keys. 













The items sitting on the buffet also go along with the
key/Valentine/vintage theme. 








If you like a little "the making of" photos, here's what some
 of the items looked like before being added to the vignette:

The key collection without the most special one!
Sherry from No Minimalist Here blog sent me an antique
key and I put it in such a safe place I can't find it  :(   .
The biggest keys came from T.J. Maxx.  The Jim Holtz keys came from Jo Ann's craft section.
They are wonderfully heavy and feel like real keys.  They also have inspirational words on them.
The keys on the mirror I bought at a craft sale popped off when I started to paint the mirror
so I just used the keys and left the mirror for another time. 

The key wall hanging had another sentiment on the bottom
but I covered it up with words that went more with the theme.
It came from the clearance section at Hobby Lobby for $8.
The golden keys got painted a more rusty color to go with the
metal angel (on sale at Hobby Lobby for $12.50)...isn't she pretty?
The little red heart came off of an older Valentine card...
got painted and a vintage-looking cutout was glued on.

No heart-shaped wreath forms were anywhere to be found
so I made some out of "Great Stuff" insulation foam in a can.

To give an "already aged" look to the coffee filter wreath,
brown filters were used. To, hopefully, tie this wreaths' look
into the book page wreaths on the mantle, each filter was 
embellished with a script-y stamp from the craft store.

There are lots of good tutorials on the internet about how
to make a coffee filter wreath. Use your stamped natural
color filters and continue following those directions.
Here's a very good tutorial to try from Lil' Luna blog.

The other heart-shaped wreath is also a book page wreath
but it looked so very "meh" with only the torn pages.

It got romantic with the addition of cut up tea-stained doilies
and some of the left over vintage-looking cutouts.
To see other wreaths I made with book pages for Valentines' click on  Vintage Valentine Mantle.

The paper heart garland was made from aged book pages
left over from the wreaths.  I used a paper punch from the
craft store to make the hearts and glued them onto a string.

Let's see what else...the antique-looking vase came from 
Hobby Lobby this year, the heart-shaped wire basket was $2
at a flea market, the tin and the cross-stitch on the 
wooden block came from Michael's this year
(I added the vintage cutouts on top to tie them in),
  the little vases I had, and the roses came from Tom Kat.

Speaking of Tom Kat, for a REAL behind the scenes look at
this Valentine vignette, here's a pic of the photo session:

All day we had rain and it was dark and gloomy so no 
good natural light on this interior wall for photos. Tom Kat
 helped with lighting so I could get pictures but there were NO
cute, sweet "Hey Girl" sentiments uttered by him that night.


6 comments

  1. Very pretty!! Thanks so much for the tutorial!!

    I hope you will stop by and enter my 3rd Blog Anniversary Giveaway.....

    Hugs,
    Debbie

    ReplyDelete
  2. you have shown how Valentine's Day does not have to be commercial

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a fun and informative post. I love those keys!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh my that is gorgeous too! I love the little fiskar heart cutter.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been on a key addiction lately too, seems like every where I go, one of the first things I look for are keys. Couldn't believe that I found some nice heavy ones at Big Lots.
    OMG~your a genius, who would have thought to make a wreath out of insulation foam.
    Adore your entire display!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to comment on my blog!

© Miss Kopy Kat. Design by FCD.