Mom creates Valentine’s themed ‘love heart cascade’

By Emma Dunn via SWNS

A mom has created a Valentine’s themed "love heart cascade" outside her house – for just £165 ($201).

Carmen Croxall, 35, spent just a week planning and decorating the front of her rented home to create the cascading display that resembled the giant popular sweets.

The mom-of-two, known for transforming her property into a gingerbread house for Christmas 2022, decided to get creative again to celebrate Valentine’s day.

Carmen created the design from mostly recycled materials – using reject love hearts, made from water resistant MDF, a free carpet tube from a local store to form the love heart wrapper, and scraps of plastic garden wire.

Carmen, owner of the Prop Factory, from Exeter, Devon, England, said: “I love to decorate for myself.

“It’s for fun. I was just going to create a pink door or something small but people kept asking what I was doing so I felt they were expecting something big.

“I had the idea at the beginning of the week and managed to have it finished by the end.

"The idea is for the love hearts to look like they are falling from the tube. It’s mostly made from recycled materials.

“My 13-year-old saw it out of his window and mumbled something but hasn’t then said a word and my three-year-old doesn’t seem to have noticed.”

From idea to installation, the Valentine’s day project took a week to build.

Carmen used a recycled carpet tube and wrapped it in white duct tape, before covering it in a printed love heart sleeve and cellophane.

She used reject love hearts from her prop company, plus an additional two sheets of new MDF sheets with the design on costing £120 ($146).

Carmen put the display together by using a wooden pole and scraps of plastic wire she had lying around.

She also used drum shells bought for just £10 (12) before positioning the love hearts onto the structure - so they appeared to be flowing from the tube.

“I used a broke hula hoop to attach the love heart tube at the top,” Carmen said.

Carmen, who has created many designs since first decorating her house in 2020, tries to recycle as much of her projects as she can.

Her gingerbread house - a design complete with biscuit window frames, candy canes and gingerbread men – is being recycled as a carnival float.

“The only thing thrown away was the icing,” she said.

“Everything else is being made into a carnival float.”

Carmen plans to keep this design up for just a month – so as not to annoy her neighbors.

“I’m already thinking about my next big project,” she said.

“I want to plan it now so I can do it in stages so it’s not as stressful.”

Cost of Carmen’s Valentines themed love heart cascade:

£10 ($12) for used drum shells
£120 ($146) for two sheets of love hearts printed on MDF
£15 ($18) worth of Velcro
£20 ($14)worth of cable ties
Total: £165 ($201)