Lots of Love for Valentine's Day

Although I do a lot of craft blogging, I do occasionally make projects that don't get posted to my blog. Here are some Valentine's I made for family this year:

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Cupid Card-in-a-Box

Valentine's came came early at our house with my Smarties Pants treat bags, and I received an extra treat when those bags won the challenge at Decorate to Celebrate. My prize was 25 beautifully hand-made puzzle piece embellishments. Thank you so much, Rhonda!

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Friday the 13th Valentine

My husband & I don't celebrate Valentine's Day, at least not officially, but I did tease him that since Friday the 13th is the day before this year, he should get me a bouquet of black cats! That's not gonna happen for so many reasons, but I figured I'd make him a special card.

Note: Well, my husband surprised me with a fabulous Valentine's gift ... "He went to Beacon!"

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For the Nieces

I couldn't resist grabbing the last sheet of this My Little Pony™ paper at Michael's last week to make a special Valentine. I grew up with these plastic ponies, and apparently they are on the third generation now. Oh my. Happily, my sister-in-law has passed on this fun toy to her daughters, so I went on their website and found some great coloring pages. I chose this sweet image of Spike the dragon & Twilight Sparkle to use on the card, and also printed a few of the coloring-book pages for our nieces to play with. For the design I used Tuesday Morning Sketch #286.

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Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Love

You can't go wrong with a shaker card! I used my Silhouette to cut out the tiny hearts, and used the resulting mask to ink the blue hearts. The clouds were cut with IO dies. It's almost impossible to see in this photo, but there is a city silhouette heat-embossed in white along the bottom of the card. I wrapped the bottom of the card with some actual baker's twine, which I got from a New York-style bakery in Arizona a couple of years back.

Thank you for visiting, and lots of love to you & yours!

Heart Triple Easel Card

A friend gave me a template by HOTP for a Heart Triple Easel Card, and I used it to make this Valentine for my folks.

I sorta surprised myself by choosing a rose-red & teal color theme, but I loved this double-sided heart-and-notebook DP from Lawn Lawn, along with this teal heart-patterned DP from my stash.

I used the Gluber Flower technique to make the ribbon rose, but since I couldn't find my Glubers I used an adhesive sheet. This ruler-patterned ribbon went perfectly with the papers. The heart button is die-cut with a PageMakers die. I used a watermark pen to create the border and messily heat-embossed it in white to create a chalkboard effect.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Amusing Challenges: Valentines
Crafting By Designs #62: Love Is In The Air
DoubleClick Skittles #15: Use a heart
Really Reasonable Ribbon #111: Buttons & Bows + Ribbon

Update: This made the Top 3 for Amusing Challenge #113, and was Spotlight project for Crafting By Designs #62!

Thank you for visiting,

Power of Love

OSAAT February Prize Pack

Tell everyone you see
How much better the world could be
For them and for you, for me
With the power of love.
Luther Vandross / Marcus Miller

After three wonderful years as part of the One Stitch at a Time (OSAAT) Design Team, I've decided that it's time for me to move on & become a customer! You can see all my OSAAT projects here.

This fortnight at OSAAT, our theme is Love. StitchyBear's Digi Outlet has hundreds of digital products from many wonderful artists. Even if you don't use a store image, you'll still be in the drawing to win the super-duper February prize pack.

For my farewell project I couldn't resist using The Power of Love by Stitchy Stamps. I used this digi stamp back in 2012 on a card for my handsome husband. This time, I used a quote from the song "Power of love/Love Power" by Luther Vandross (the full video is here).
 

I made a notch swing card, so the sentiment circle rotates to reveal a silver vinyl heart design from Silhouette.

The patterned papers, including the message section, are from Recollections' "Comic Heroes" collection.

Inspiration/Challenges:
2 Cute Ink Challenge: Valentine's/Love
4 Crafty Chicks #232: Hand Coloured Image
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge: Patterned Paper
Crafty Sentiment Designs: Include a Heart
Going Grey With Scrap-Creations: Love

Thank you for visiting, and hope you'll join us at One Stitch at a Time,

Happy Year of the Green Wooden Sheep!

I always enjoy an excuse to send a card and I especially enjoy making Chinese New Year cards, so I just had to make a card to celebrate the Year of the Green Wooden Sheep.

For the sheep-y background, I used an idea from a card I made in 2012 ("Do Sheeple dream of electric Peeps?") but I started with a polka-dotted Graphic 45 DP. I made faces & legs on some of the dots with a black pen and then filled in those dots with a glittery white Wink of Stella brush pen. The piece was cut with a Spellbinders die that I just purchased with some holiday money.

I had too much fun making the sheep embellishment! I painted a wooden clock, cut clock hands from a shiny white paper on my Silhouette, backed the clock with the same paper, added black bits and a pom-pom tail, and attached it to the card with a brad I heat-embossed in glittery white. It reminds me of Tock!

The wood-panel paper is a scrap from my 2014 Chinese New Year card, and I've had the light wood-patterned backing paper since last year as well. The numbers were cut on my Silhouette from a small scrap of a different wood-patterned paper. The banners are ARC crafts wood tape, something I just had to have but have just used! I inked the smaller piece with Vintage Photo distress ink.

Sketch #383

Inspiration/Challenges:
Crafty Calendar: What's New? (New Year & new stash)
Mojo Monday: Sketch #383



Thank you for visiting,

Flowers, Burlap & Love

I managed to go almost a month without [completely] burying my work table in craft supplies & scraps, but I guess this week I'm making up for it! I'm not so good at putting away things after I've used them ... but instead of tackling that job I decided to make a card and add to the pile!

My paper choices were inspired by the current {PIN}spirational Challenge (see image below). The burlap-printed paper is by Recollections (available at Michaels), and the Memory Box Wildflower Corner die cut is cut from silver adhesive vinyl from Joanne's. The pink patterned papers are scraps.

The layout was inspired by the current Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. The label is cut/embossed with a Pagemakers die form a thick silver cardstock. I heat-embossed the sentiment with a glittery white powder, and attached the piece with small silver brads. I finished the card with adhesive lace.

I'm very pleased with how this card came out, so my procrastination was worth it!

I'm entering this card in the following fabulous crafting challenges::
Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge: Sketch #93
City Crafter Challenge #247: Roses & Lace
Ooh La La Creations #173: Love
{PIN}spirational Challenge #133: Photo Inspiration

Thank you for visiting,