It’s finally February, and it’s not quite as cold here as it was in January. The days are a little longer, and the promise of spring is in the air! Life in the DC suburbs is very tense these days, but I’m trying to remain hopeful and support those I love.

If you’re feeling crafty, or if you feel like the world is crumbling around us and you need to do something lighthearted, I have a very quick and easy DIY that will bring some joy to your home, inspired by @athomewithashley. If you don’t follow her on Instagram, check out her feed — she has such amazing ideas!

I followed her tutorial online and bought these small styrofoam hearts and hair ribbons from Amazon.

Then I painted each heart using old acrylic paints I’ve stashed away in the basement. (You can buy paints like these at Michael’s for $2-3 each.) Because I wanted these hearts to be pastel, I ended up mixing some of the colors with white to lighten them. To avoid too much busyness, I used only 5 colors. The nice part about this project is that you can easily repaint the hearts if they aren’t the perfect color — I painted the yellow ones multiple times because I felt like the color was too bright.

After letting the hearts dry (takes only a few minutes), I wrote silly phrases on them using a gold paint marker. Again, if you don’t like how it comes out, either flip the heart over or repaint it. No pressure!

Finally, I hot glued the top of each heart and the top of the hair ribbons to a piece of twine and attached it to our fireplace mantel. (Don’t attach the twine to the middle of the hearts — I tried that first and gravity made the cute part of the hearts face the floor.)

This was a very easy and calming activity — I highly recommend it! And now our living room is just a little more joyful as we welcome February.

Happy crafting,