Valentine’s Decor Tips & Tricks

Written By Emma Baker

I like my holidays to be more than a look. It’s about designing a feeling, or vibe. When a guest walks into my home, I want to stimulate all five senses, not just appeal to them visually.

Sometimes decor can be overwhelming. Where to find it? What look to go for? Is your s/o going to enjoy your new festive finds? It’s not easy being in the business of pleasing everyone. With that being said, take this time to put out something YOU truly love. I promise if you find a vision and you stand behind it, it will be adored. 

Never be self-conscious about personal expression through design. Creativity is allowing yourself the room to make mistakes and design is knowing which ones to keep.

A quick way to nail down your vision is to find a theme. We love a theme. Now, try to think multi-dimensionally when I say “theme” - this can be a beautiful color palette, an earthy element, a children's book, a song, or a movie - find something fun that inspires your decor that you can center your holiday around.

When I think of Valentine's a few different things come to mind: romance, playfulness, appreciation for the love in my life, chocolate, and a good cocktail.
This Valentine’s Day, I found myself inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Think a family-friendly hidden garden tea party for breakfast and a flip to Queen of Hearts a la “eat me or it’s off with your head” for after dark. Fun right?

Before you know it you’ll be inviting all your friends over for a trip to Wonderland. Boom.

Not only did you deck the halls, but you’re a party planner too.

So how do we make those things come to life in your home? Let’s dive into the basics.

PLANNING

First, we plan. Every good plan for me begins in a note on my phone. The checklist option is a game-changer. Normally my brainstorming note for decorating begins a bit like this:

DAYTIME

TABLE SET FOR TEA

Theme: Alice in Wonderland

Drinks:

  • Herbal Tea - something pink, maybe floating flowers?

  • Fun Latte Option - look on Pinterest

Menu:

  • Tea Sandwiches - in a fun thematic shape

  • Sweets - assorted candies and pastries, find cute bowls

Decor Elements:

  • Entry - Valentine themed door hanger?

  • Living Room - garland, something to attach Valentine cards to

  • Dining Room - set the table with thematic china (look for mom’s vintage teapots) and decor

Naturally, after some daydreaming and late-night scrolling through Pinterest - this note will become a checklist of everything you need to make your vision come to life. 

EXECUTING

Next, we execute our plan by sourcing the materials to create your look. Make a grocery list for your holiday bites and take a Saturday to make yourself a hot tea and do a little hunting and gathering.

You do not necessarily need to purchase anything crazy expensive for decorating your home. Go through your parents' china cabinet and find some vintage tableware, bring out your “fancy” dishes, hit a quick thrift shop, antique store, or Goodwill. Your tableware doesn’t all need to match or be overly curated. Make do with what (I’m sure) you already have.

I truly believe you can make your space look beautiful with what you have around you. This achieves what I call a “lived-in look” by creating an effortless and comfortable setting for your guests to walk into. It’s unsettling to invite guests into your home when things feel stuffy and over-produced. It should look like you grabbed a handful of flowers from the garden, made a few exciting apps, set a beautiful table, and threw your hair in a chic pony. Voila!
Now for the sake of my motto “more is more”, I, of course, used this blog post as an excuse to style not one, but two looks for Valentine’s Day because we love options. And you’ll be able to shop the post if you don’t feel like going to the trouble of dreaming up something independently. Take my ideas and re-create!

CREATING

Here’s are my four pillars of holiday decorating:

Front Entry Moment 

Living Room Focal Moment

Dining Room Tablescape

Small Details Around Your Home

Front Entry Moment

I’m big into feng shui and energy channels being clear for abundance. Considering your front entry is how energy enters your home, it’s always important to make it inviting and welcoming and ensure it’s clear of debris and clutter. Add a couple of small details to your front door to set the tone for the holiday. In this case, I added a heart-shaped door hanger and threw a bunch of wildflowers and a head of ornamental kale into what year-round is typically an empty bucket.

Living Room Focal Moment

After the front entry, I love a focal moment in the living room. A festive garland is always fun to design and hangs beautifully either on a credenza, along a console table, or above the mantle. HomeGoods is usually a great stop for snagging a thematic garland or you can take this opportunity for a fun DIY.

If I snag a garland that comes with an otherwise generic ribbon for stringing, I opt for something a bit more elevated. I had some fabulous velvet ribbon lying around and restrung my garland with that. I love creating layers with multiple strands and styling the pieces myself. A great tip is to sneak mini clothespins into your garland and display any holiday cards you receive through the season instead of cluttering the side of your fridge.

I also love flanking either side of my mantle with distressed ‘Wabi Sabi’ style terracotta urns - one to host something green and one to host a wood wick candle. Incorporating living elements into your home decor is not only beautiful but plants promote good oxygen levels which is the core of positive feng shui for health and well-being. 

Trust me on dropping a wood wick candle in your urns - not only does it create the most beautiful lantern effect that flickers during the evening, but it is a great place to hide those candles that smell so good but aren't always aesthetically pleasing.

Lastly, I always include taper candles to the mix in fun colors and various heights near the base of the fireplace. I’m also a big fan of stacked books in all areas of the home and always think it’s nice to incorporate them in any capacity. If you have some books you love but the sleeves aren’t so glam, take the sleeve off and leave them “naked” - it creates solid color blocks for stacking.

Dining Room Tablescape

To be honest, decorating for the holidays for me has always been predominantly about setting a beautiful table. Not only is it the best place for good conversation, but in the rules of feng shui, whether it’s time to eat or not, it’s important to keep something on the dining table because it provides a sense of purpose and invitation.

I typically start by turning on some great music and grabbing everything around the house I know will help me achieve whatever look I’m going for. In this case, for my hidden garden look, I knew I wanted to incorporate all the books in my home, pull out my glass tea set, grab my bud vases, gather my taper candles, and design something feminine and whimsical for a beautiful Valentine’s brunch.

I placed some distressed stools on the table to create levels because I love my guests' eye to always find something new to look at. It’s important to always keep the eye going by designing a table that has both depth and dimension.

I purchased a few additional details from Amazon like vintage keys and clocks to elevate the theme and brought in wildflowers to bring the table to life. You can place a floral wire through the stem of your flowers and form it into an unruly shape you would like. I always keep a dozen or so bud vases in my credenza and bring them out during the holidays to place a few stems of florals in each. It’s so easy to grab a few bunches of flowers the next time you're out, give them a quick trim and place the bud vases along the table. 

I want to see a design in motion so during the holiday I always repurpose all the incense and palo santo in my home and bring them to the table to create both movement and initiate clear energy.

Like I said before, stimulating all five senses is the key to beautiful design so I always find a fitting menu to go along with my look. I set the table with hibiscus tea, heart-shaped waffles, tea sandwiches cut in the shape of a suit of cards, and assorted candies. A quick trick to plating beautiful food is to buy some edible flowers - perfect for topping a drink and adding a garnish.

After you’ve set the base elements of your table there are a few quick and easy ways to elevate any design: adding a sprinkle of dried flowers, printing some paper goods, and garnishing with produce. Amazon carries a wide array of dried flowers for adding that final touch to your tablescape. Find a local printer and for (normally) under $10 you can have a few custom paper goods printed. I used Canva to design a few tags for this Alice in Wonderland look that read “Drink Me” and “Read Me.” I wanted some fun play on words that I could re-purpose in the evening. 

One of my favorite cost-efficient tricks is to go to your local grocer and find some beautiful produce to add to any bare spots. I grabbed heirloom carrots and petite radishes to create an earthy and organic feel to this design.

Now for the evening look, I wanted to use a lot of the same elements but give it more of an adults-only vibe. Simply changing the color of your taper candles will create an entirely new look. I swapped the candles to black, my produce for Bosc pears and opted for bottled perfume and a sleek scented candle on the table instead of incense. I wanted to create a romantic “night in” because who really likes going out for Valentine's anyway?

I figured it would be fun to create an entirely aphrodisiac menu starting with a sip of hot sake and oysters on the half shell, followed by grilled artichoke and fresh sashimi, and ending with dark chocolate dipped strawberries and shortbread cookies covered in crushed pistachios. 

Because I was already printing those cute tags for brunch, I went ahead and printed a menu for the evening that read “Eat Me Or It’s Off With Your Head” a la Queen of Hearts. 

An easy way to create an upscale (but simple) dinner situation at home is to order in but plate your food beautifully. Display your sashimi on a slate cheese board and add an edible flower to the side of your fresh ginger. 

The desserts could be a fun activity to do the night before with family. I bought some dark melting chocolate and dipped a few strawberries and shortbread cookies. I took a handful of pistachios and crushed them for a sprinkle before the chocolate dried. Under 5 minutes and delicious. For drinks, I recommend a vanilla bean and fig cocktail (which are both aphrodisiacs) or a spicy chile pepper martini.

The nesting baskets that I used to decorate the base of my mantle during the few weeks leading up to the holiday I used as a creative way to “wrap” my Valentine’s gifts for the evening. I love repurposing decor I already own. 

And remember those “Drink Me” and “Read Me” tags from brunch? It’s time to use them after dark. Tie your “Read Me” tag to a small wicker basket and attach a note to your s/o. This is the perfect place for a thoughtful and personal touch. In this case, I found a pack of “Lucky Tickets” and dropped a few inside with the note.

 In the next basket, attach a tag that reads “Play Me” and include some cheeky late-night games to play after dinner. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Serena Kerrigan’s card games. I found some ‘Truth of Dare Poppers’ and some ‘Spark Passion Matchsticks’ and combined the two.

And for your largest box, attach a card that reads “Please Me”, filled with lingerie. I love the idea of keeping these on the table during dinner and opening after.

Small Details Around Your Home

The other decor tips I have for you are all in the details. During the holiday I love putting out a nice hand soap in every restroom. A couple of my favs are the bar soap from Diptyque in Roses, Byredo Suede or you guessed it - Aesop Resurrection.

Fill small bowls with assorted holiday candies like red hots, all pink starbursts, and conversation hearts and set them out on the coffee table, end tables, entry tables, and kitchen island. I prefer something subtle like this over some kitschy home decor.

I also always incorporate an earthy element as a focal piece on a beautiful piece of furniture. Depending on the season, I most often opt for popping some blooming branches in a ceramic vase. This year I made a DIY paper heart tree by finding the perfect branch from the front yard and adorning it with paper hearts in different shades of pink. All you need is a few different sheets of cardstock in various shades of pink, red, or white and some yarn. I’ll attach the link to the template in the details.

When it comes to feng shui it is said that your bedroom aligns with your overall wellness and is the place you should go to rejuvenate - which ties into the Earth element. Incorporate materials like ceramics, crystals, stones, and earth tones to bring a specific energy into your bedroom.

This is the perfect place to set up a grounding sanctuary and add a few details to make it thematic to the holiday. I keep my salt rock lamp and a diffuser next to a few crystals and some candles.
For Valentine’s Day, go ahead and romanticize this area. I switched my Nest candle for the Woo More Play massage oil candle and added some flowers. I always love love love a miniature orchid. Sprinkle a few of your dried flowers around your sanctuary and light your candles just before you start dinner.

After dinner take your gifts to the bedroom to spice things up. I found the most fun games to play to keep things exciting all night. Super affordable and linked below.  Add red light bulbs to the lamps in your bedroom (TSC fam gets it) to set the mood. Not only are they full of health benefits but are perfect for Valentine’s Day.

That about sums it up! Never forget a good playlist, I’ve been loving the French artist Emma Peters lately. Would create a super cute Valentine’s vibe. The last touch to any holiday is always a room spray around the house and a few photos taken with an original Polaroid camera. They make the cutest petite photo albums to display on the coffee table year-round. Xo!

Shop Hidden Garden Look

Shop Eat Me Look

Design: The Emma Edit by Emma Baker

Photography: Mariposa Pictures by Beth Hawkes

Florals: The Wild Bunch NYC

Emma Baker
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