I was inspired to DIY some Valentine’s Day outdoor decor for our porch and window boxes for the first time ever. I’m so glad I did!
I’ve always been a big Halloween and Christmas holiday decorator (both indoors and out), but now I’ve permanently added Valentine’s Day to my list.
The last year has been pretty hard on everyone, and I found that after the holidays I wasn’t quite ready to take all of my exterior fairy white lights down.
I removed quite a lot, but decided to keep some fairy lights in our three window boxes, a couple smaller artificial lit trees, three lit artificial birch trees, and our front curtain lights.
The added white light sparkle in these dreary winter months have really brought me joy, and I love them even more with some DIY Valentine’s Day decor added to the mix.
I’m excited to share my 3 easy DIY Valentine’s Day outdoor decor ideas with you…let’s go!
The supplies:
Heart picks (I got mine at Dollar Tree, but they are sold out)
Pre-made heart banner (similar linked) – you could also DIY this
Dowel rods (or any other kind of stick or skewer)
Foam hearts (option 2)
Masking tape (or duct tape)
Heart tassel wreath (you could also DIY this)
Extra option: If you don’t want to buy or make a heart banner you can use a needle and yarn to string pom pons. I’m using this method on my interior Valentine’s decor.
1. DIY large foam heart picks
I purchased some colorful foam hearts for my daughter’s virtual education Valentine’s day party craft and had quite a few of them left over, so I decided to use them to make the easiest heart picks for our window boxes.
A handful of affordable dowel rods and masking tape is all I needed to make this project happen.
A note: I made these DIY projects quickly outside in the snow, so you know they’re fast and easy. 🙂
Simply take two strips of tape and strongly secure the backs of the hearts to the dowel rod (or any stick, etc).
I used a combination of dowel rods and a few longer s’mores sticks we already had on hand.
Repeat this step with a handful or hearts until you have a nice pile of heart picks.
Simply stick them in the window box greenery or whatever you are wanting to decorate (trees, potted plants, etc).
If you’re worried about the wind blowing and exposing the taped side, you could staple or tape another heart on the backside. So far mine have stayed forward-facing.
Window box before photo
Here’s a look at the window box before – after removing almost all the Christmas decor.
The box is filled with a set of 6 faux sweetgrass boxwoods, some greenery sprigs, a handful of silver and red berries from Dollar tree, and one strand of basic white holiday lights.
In the summer it’s filled with Boston ferns – my favorite!
Now it’s time to add the heart picks that are started to get covered in snow, ha!
Adding the Valentine heart banner for some extra festivity
I added eight heart picks and then decided to use four thumbtacks to attach the three pre-made heart banners to the front of the window box.
Here she is in the day time – cute I think!
Valentine’s Day window box decor at night…
I just love the hearts mixed with the curtain lights, and the shadows casted from our DIY uplighting – so magical!
I’m very impressed with the masking tape so far. As I’m writing this, the hearts have already made it through two rains and a snow (I’ll add some more tape if ever needed).
Adding heart picks to two more window boxes
Last summer Ted and I made some quick and easy DIY window boxes (similar to our large one) for our two windows above the garage.
As soon as they went in I was so excited to decorate them for all the holidays!
Below is a look at one box as I removed the holiday bulb – It’s filled with some faux cypress greenery and plug in fairy lights.
The window boxes are not accessible from the upstairs windows unfortunately, so I have the use the extension ladder to access them.
I kept the plug in fairy lights in both window boxes. They’ve held up great since last September when I first added them for Halloween. I highly recommend them and also use them inside our home in a few places.
Night time window box view
I repeated the same steps on the other window box and moved onto the next project.
2. DIY Valentine’s Day decor foam hearts added to trees
This project is even easier than the heart picks – all you need is some masking tape and some foam hearts.
Secure foam hearts on the tree branches with your tape, and repeat the steps with different colored hearts until you’re happy.
Again, these have held up through two rain storms and some snow so far. If the tape ever gets weak I’ll simply remove the old tape and add fresh.
We have three pre-lit birch trees that I got on clearance at the end of the holiday season. They’re beautiful at night, so I’m so excited I can incorporate them into our Valentine’s Day decor!
Some similar pre-lit birch tree options I found online are below if you’re in the market:
A look at the pre-lit birch heart trees at night
Kinda fun right? These foam hearts are such an easy and affordable way to decorate – So festive!
3. Valentine’s Day outdoor porch decor ideas
Last area to decorate is the front porch. Here’s a look at how it was looking decorated for the holidays (the basket on the table is full of snacks for our delivery people):
And a look at the before with minimal winter decor – looking kind of blah.
I keep the string lights around our door year-round, and love the look.
I busted out our leaf blower and cleaned up the porch. Then I grabbed my heart picks, my affordable heart tassel wreath, a couple of extra pillows from our garage storage, and our “hello” rug that we purchased then painted.
I added a handful of heart picks to the two faux trees that flank the porch stairs.
On, the porch, I flipped a Christmas pillow to reveal the red side and added it to the chair. then I added a couple other old pillows to the ground.
The tree got the foam heart treatment, and the cute and affordable wreath was the finishing touch!
The night time view of the Valentine’s Day porch decor – so festive and fun!
Here’s a closer look at the adorable wreath (cost $8), and is hung with a clean command hook. This could definitely be a fairly easy DIY project, but for $8 it was worth it for me to buy.
If you wanted to make one you could buy a heart wreath form and make some yarn tassels to hang from it pretty easily.
This rainbow tassel wall hanging would also look awesome.
A zoomed out look at some of the Valentine’s day outdoor decor in the day time
A quick peek at our inside entryway Valentine decor
I taped the same foam hearts on the wall surrounding our mirror and added some pom pons and plug in fairy lights to the trees for some festivity inside. It’s a little gaudy, but it makes us smile…especially our daughter. 🙂
If you wanted to go more subtle you could definitely skip the foam hearts.
I also taped some hearts to our inside curtain lights as well as strung a heart banner together with a needle and yarn.
P.S. In case anyone wants a closer look at our treat basket for our delivery people, here it is. I simply filled a baking dish with chips and a hand made note (I replenish as needed.
The Pringle’s chips are by far a fan favorite! 🙂