Valentine's Day Mantel - Love Letters

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching!  Have you written any Love Letters lately?  I am trying to do better about sending actual hand written letters to some wonderful people in my life.  I feel in this day and age of emails, text messages, twitter and now instagram, the written letter is becoming a thing of the past.  I have heard that they are even considering not teaching cursive writing in schools anymore.  What a shame, I believe that cursive writing is a form of art and very expressive.  Well in my thoughts about all of this change, I kind of wanted to pay tribute to the Love Letter this Valentine's Day.

Using my red shutters from my Christmas Mantel and my old window that I have used many times, I made a back drop for my love letters.  I have them both in the mail box and some topiary LOVE letters!

 These topiary letter pots were a fun project, not very hard at all.  I started with clay pots and several different pieces of scrapbook papers that had a handwriting motif.  I ripped medium sized pieces of the paper off and Modge Podged them to the pots until completely covered, not worrying about matching the writing and smoothing down the wrinkles.  Constructing the letters was easier than I thought it would be.  I used a moss mat - ( I actually had some left over from my Father's Day Golf Table) I think I bought  mine a Michaels - but I am not sure.  It is quite a large piece and even after both of these projects I still have quite a bit left to do something else with it. The price on the package is $19.99 but I am sure I probably used a coupon to purchase this thing where ever I bought it!

As you can see in the picture, this moss has a brown paper backing on it, making it very easy to work with.  I purchased some white wood letters at Joann Fabrics, I liked their shape and the fact that they already had a hole in the bottom for a dowel rod.  Flip them over and trace around them backwards on the mat backing so that the moss would be on the right side of the letter. I took a black marker and colored the edges of the letters so that black would show through if I did not get the whole edge covered with the moss.  I used Modge Podge to apply the moss to the letters.

Hot gluing the dowel rods in - I realized I probably should have painted them first!  But oh well, not a real problem.  I did not have enough oasis foam down my basement - so as I was scrounging around for something to use - I came up with the idea of turning a foam coffee cup upside down and pushing the dowel rod through the bottom of the cup.  It worked great!

So after I pulled the letter out of the cup and painted the dowel rods, I topped the pots with some green excelsior.

So now I needed to spice up my mailbox!  I have always enjoyed the collage effect that many scrapbookers have brought to an art.  So I decided to try my own Altered Mailbox!

I am not the best at these so I am not going to even attempt to do a tutorial on these collages until I get better at them!  

But I thought my love letters coming in and going out needed a pretty mailbox!

I added some hearts "floating" out of the Mailbox,

and a simple ribbon garland with some glass hearts my girlfriend found at Home Goods for me!

Here is hoping your mailbox gets a love letter this Valentine's day.  

Send someone you know a Love Letter!

Your comments are like love letters to me!!

Thank you to all of you who have shown me so much love over my first year of blogging!

I am joining the following linking parties:

Thursdays are Your Days @ 52 Mantels

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage

Saturday Nite Special @ Funky Junk Interiors

Weekend Wrap Up @ Tater Tots and Jello

Strut Your Stuff Saturdays @Six Sisters Stuff

Seasonal Sundays @ The Tablescaper

The Sunday Showcase Party @ Under the Table and Dreaming