I am co-hosting the Love Blog Challenge today. The prompt is “Best Friends.” I’ve shared the prompt list for the rest of the month below but also feel free to head over to Brita’s Introduction Post for more details and ideas for each prompt. We’d love to have you join us!

You guys! I’m going to my first ever (official) Galentine’s Day party this year!

Looking back, I do remember one year that I spent Valentine’s day with some girl friends. I graduated from college a semester early in December of 2011 and moved back home to work. Pearson graduated on time in May of 2012. So we spent that Valentine’s Day apart and I went to my friend’s house for dinner and Nicholas Sparks movies with a few other girlfriends. But we didn’t label it Galentine’s Day.

Anyway, I’m so excited about this party. My friend, Gwen is throwing this shindig and she’s a creative genius. Not to mention, she’s the most
gregarious person I’ve met. She loves her friends, she loves meeting new friends, and she loves introducing friends. Plus she loves throwing parties for her friends and I love that I get to benefit from that!

Side Note: Gwen did a photo shoot for Pearson and me back in October. You can see a lot of the photos on my Instagram account (we’re both wearing plaid except when I have a green jacket on in a couple of them).

So for this Galentine’s Day party, we’re going to brunch at a really fun cafe and exchanging gifts. Then we’re having a mini photo shoot. The catch is that the gifts have to be home made, and we have to bring one for everybody there. So we have to make 10 of the same, simple Valentine’s gift to give away.

Cue the anxiety. I am not very artistic. I like to think I’m creative, but crafty, no. I’ve tried before. Mostly for the blog. But my creations never turned out as good as others’. So I haven’t written a DIY post on here in a long time.

But I needed to do something for this party so I took to the internet looking for ideas that were simple but still somewhat impressive. I didn’t want to cut a heart out of a piece of paper and call it good, you know. So I found this post, and fell in love. Now I didn’t make the candle holders exactly like Jessi did, so I’m still going to give you my tutorial. But I wanted to give credit where credit is due. The idea came from Jessi of Practically Functional.

So here’s what I did:

Supplies:

• Spray paint in your choice of color
• (Optional) Glitter spray paint in your choice of color
• Mason jars
• Votive candles
• Heart shaped stickers (you might want to get actual stickers because these foam ones were hard to get off)

Instructions:

First I put the stickers on the jars (again, regular non-foam stickers might have worked better. The paint sort of seeped through the edges and they were hard to take off).

Next I took all the supplies outside on my patio and put down a couple trash bags to protect the concrete.

I used a plastic grocery bag to cover my arm and put my hand in a jar to hold it so that I could rotate the jar without it touching anything.

I sprayed each jar with one layer of the solid pink spray paint.

I let that dry for about 30 minutes (the can said 10 minutes).

Then I sprayed them all with a thin layer of the glitter and they started looking really pretty.

Remember what I said earlier about the stickers being difficult to remove? Yeah. It took some scraping.

But the stickers eventually came off and I put a candle in each one. I think they turned out pretty great. What do you think?

Have you ever gone to a Galentine’s Day party? Did you guys exchange crafts like we are?

Thanks for reading! And be sure to link up any “Best Friends” posts below!

Meet Your Hosts:

Brita Long is the pink and sparkly personality behind the Christian feminist lifestyle blog, Belle Brita. On her blog and social media, you’ll discover more than authentic storytelling–she’s brutally honest about pursuing a fulfilling and joyful life even with Crohn’s Disease and depression.

Kayla Whitter is a 20-something INFJ and Hufflepuff. She works full-time at a local university, goes to graduate school, and runs the lifestyle blog A Paper Arrow. Her favorite things include reading, drinking coffee, eating Chick-fil-A and Mexican food, and hanging out with her hubby and cat (Courage).

Charlene is a 20 something wife and fur-mama living in Portland, Oregon. She’s a follower of Christ, watcher of SciFi, reader of fantasy, singer of show tunes, and lover of her husband! She uses her blog, Enduring All Things to help couples build a marriage that will endure whatever comes their way.

Finally, the Link Up: