Valentine Hearts

I often arrive at the party late, or rather, I arrive at the home decor ideas "party" late. Case in point: I decided just this week that I would like to have a few mercury glass hearts to tuck into the faux snow inside a cloche. But I don't have any mercury glass hearts, so I had to go shopping. That's where my idea-lateness becomes a problem: there are no hearts out there in shoppingville, let alone mercury glass hearts.

I looked and looked in vain, and then I happened to glance in a bin of very out of season miscellaneous leftovers at Ikea. There I saw a box of six bronzy-goldy plastic hearts! I snatched them up even though they had nothing to do with mercury or with glass. At least they were heart shapes.

At home, I got out five cans of spray paint: bright shiny silver; duller silver; shiny gold; white; and black. First I sprayed several coats of the two silvers at once, with a can in each hand (try it, it takes some coordination to do it). Then I misted on the black by holding the can at shoulder height and spraying downward to the hearts laying on the floor. I followed that with a light dusting of white done the same way, and finally, a mist of gold. (Click on above photo to see detail.)

Now they are at home in the big cloche on my sideboard. I think I may add small bows to those loops at the top of each heart.