Hooray for Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite card making holidays. And this time I started early (well, early for me!!!).

Here are a few samples:

Dancing Hearts

I figured I’d start out simple — just stamping, embossing, and cutting out hearts. These hearts are from Hero Arts and Fiskars. The background is a Spellbinders embossing folder. And the sentiment is an old one from Hero Arts. Easy peasy! I made a bunch of these cards in various color combos.

Another easy one, but all that color and glitter pack a punch. The washi tape is from Love + Lemon (the Main Squeeze set), the heart die cut (Cheery Lynn designs) from Cosmo Cricket paper. I added some Fun Foam to the back of heart before adhering it, to give some depth. Sentiment, I believe, is also from an old Hero Arts set.

And this pretty pink card uses Lawn Fawn’s quilted background die and various hearts from my collection.

Stay tuned for more Valentine cards — and thanks for stopping by!

Valentine Throwback!

Just found a photo of this card, made last year:

Playing with Silver Hessian and Chocolate Bronze Metallic Gilding Polish from Creative Expressions to create swaths of color. The Scribble Hearts are dies from Simon Says Stamp. A little splatter, a few sequins and bam! Call it a day!

And check out this throw-back card from 2013 or maybe earlier!

Back in the day, Hero Arts was among the first to use so-called “shadow stamps,” solid stamps that made great backgrounds for images stamped on top. This was one big stamp! I’m pretty sure all the smaller stamps used are from Hero Arts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heartfelt Wishes

Hokey smokes, Rocky … it’s been a while since I’ve posted here!

Here’s a quick project made with a nifty die set — Love Letter — from Spellbinders Paper Arts: 

Isn’t that the cutest die set? (It includes the envelope, “note”, and three heart dies. (See the tiniest heart? Well, I managed to use it just once … and then I lost it! It fell onto my carpet and I thought, heck, I’ll never see that bad boy again. I looked, and looked, but no luck, even though I used my handy-dandy Spellbinders magic magnetic diamond.…)

Then over the weekend, while I was searching near my desk for ANOTHER die that I dropped (oh, brother, I need to get better at handling these dies) … I used that diamond again and, viola!!! It picked up the teeny heart!!! (And I found the other die, too. )

Anyway … here is another version of the card:

(Scalloped card is A2 Scalloped Card base from Papertrey Ink; the sentiment is from Hero Arts. But, sigh, no tiny heart.)

Ta da! Here is the lost heart. See how adorably tiny it is?

Thanks for stopping by!

I (heart) Valentines!

It’s so close to Valentine’s Day! One of my favorite card making holidays.

Here are a few that will be going out this year:

I’ve always loved these three hearts from Hero Arts. I embossed them on black card stock with Wow! Fluorescent Tickled Pink powder. The grey layer is embossed with athe Swirly Bird Cuttlebug folder. Sentiment from Hero Arts.

Below is a fast and easy card, also a Hero Arts image. (May be an old image?)

As you can see, the heart was stamped and heat embossed (two with white, one with black).

And one more, little wilder:

Also pretty fast and easy. I pulled an ink-splattered background from my stash, stamped this terrific Laurel Burch designed cat (from Stampendous!), added the box of candy (Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Crazy Birds Accessories) and put it all together.

Next post will feature a beautiful die cut floral from Altenew.

Thanks for stopping by!

I (heart) Valentine’s Day

Christmas is long gone …. the new year is a week old … which means it’s almost Valentine’s Day! I love making Valentines to send to my besties, so let’s get this party started!

This one-layered card is relatively easy, and the reveal (when you pull of the mask) is so much fun! I created a heart mask, which I placed in the middle of my cardstock. Then I used some small flower and leaf images to stamp around the mask. Easy peasy. When I removed the mask, ta dah — a heart-shaped spot to stamp a sentiment! The sentiment above is from Stampin’ Up’s Bloomin’ Love set, as are some of the flowers.

Here’s another in the same mode:

I could do this all day! The XOXO is a Teresa Collins/Fiskars punch.

Happy Heart Balloon Bear

I know Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but I had to share this Valentine I made for a very special boy using this adorable balloon animal set, called Balloon Builders, from Stampin’ Up!

The set has various shapes that you mix and match to create designs. I played around a bit with the shapes to find the “formula.” (My first one was a bunny, but he came out a little creepy, so we went with the bear!)

I started with the largest balloon for the body then continued to build the bear. The main stamping was done in Stephanie Bernard’s ColorBox brown. The heart balloon was stamped in my old Marvy Matchables red.  The string, eyes, nose and inside the ear were hand drawn. Grass was added with watercolor pencils, then blended (I kind of made a mess of that….) and the sentiment (from the same set) was stamped in blue. The pierced panel is from the Richard Garay/Spellbinders Pierced Rectangles set. 

Oh, heck… here are two more cards I made for Valentine’s Day (but they can be used for other occasions, too!)

How sweet are those birds?

It’s the same die I used here, a Cath Edvalson design for Technique Tuesday. The paper is from Simple Stories and the sentiment from Stampin’ Up’s Bloomin’ Love set.

And this fast and easy card uses the Scribble Heart  Arrow die set from Simon Says Stamp. I cut a bunch from various brightly colored papers and glued them on this purple card stock (a discontinued color from Paper Source. You’ll see a lot of it because I bought a huge package when I found it on clearance!) The sequins are from Lawn Fawn, attached with Ranger Multi Medium. (I also used the inside of the hearts on other cards.)

These were so fast and easy I made a bunch (note the inside pieces, too) :

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Here are a few more Valentines … enjoy! I hope your day is was sweet!

I’m so crazy about Tim Holtz’s Crazy Birds (Stampers Anonymous) and the accessories pack. I’m also crazy about my new *Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors (I have six, but now I want more!). What better time to combine these two products?

I started this card by playing around with these delicious watercolors. I used Deep Pink and a touch of Carmine Red to create the background on watercolor paper. The colors are so rich I found myself diluting them with more water to get softer shades.

While the background was drying I stamped the sassy bird on Tim Holtz Watercolor Card stock (smooth side) in VersaFine and painted her with the watercolors. The hat was stamped separately and painted with Distress Ink Fossilized Amber; the rose and the ribbon on the box with more red. (The rose, the ribbon, and the details on the bird were later highlighted with Kuretake’s Wink of Stella Pink and Dark Pink. Oh, how I Wink of Stella!)

I cut the watercolor paper to fit on a tan card, edged it with VersaMark and Judikins’ Egyptian Gold powder (love the sparkle!), and affixed it to the card front. For my last step, I die cut Technique Tuesday’s  adorable *Heart Strings from gold paper scraps and glued them on top. How sweet is this card? Oh yeah … and I stamped the sentiment using *Stampin’ Up’s! Bloomin’ Love set. (You’ll see the coordinating die set used in my earlier Valentine cards here.) The sentiment is perfect for my “gal-entine” cards that went to my BFFs.)

Here’s another version using the same materials (and the other die in the Technique Tuesday Heart Strings set. See how I got some extra hearts?)

One more quick card using the Heart Strings in a different way:

The adorable bird (Love Bird by Cath Edvalson) is also from Technique Tuesday. The sequins are from Lawn Fawn. The sentiment from *Stampin’ Up! Bloomin’ Love. 

 

*These products were generously donated by the companies. See this note.

(This post was written on Feb. 13, but then I lost it all!!! Aaargh. )

Valentine’s Flowered Heart

It was instant love when I saw this flowered die set (and coordinating stamps) from Stampin’ Up! The die is so beautiful that it does all the hard work for you, whether you are making a Valentine’s Day card, a wedding card, or anything in between.

Look at how easy it is to change the look with just a change of colors. These are very simple, but can easily be used on a more elaborate card.

Enjoy:

I did use the Sizzix Precision Cutting Mat to cut this on my Big Shot — the mat made a huge difference in how well this intricate die cut. The flowers were also die cut and added using Glue Dots™ Minis. Self-stick rhinestones add a bit of sparkle.  The sentiment (Hero Arts) was embossed in white.

Basically the same card. The pink card stock is from World Win and cuts like a dream.

The faux stitching is done with a white gel pen. The sentiment here was stamped in Wendy Vecchi’s Potting Soil archival brown. I love that color.

Thanks for stopping by!

Valentine Heart

I’m taking a brief break from CHA reporting to delve into Valentine’s Day! This is probably my favorite card making holiday. (Last year I sent 40 Valentines, each one just a bit different) to my best gal buddies.

Here’s the first of this year’s batch, a quick-and-easy heart in non-traditional colors:

So easy! I die cut the heart (Hero Arts) three times from white card stock, glued the three together and embossed the top with WOW! gold glitter powder.

I built my card base (using some older card stock from Stampin’ Up!) and affixed the heart on top. The banner was stamped (old Hero Arts sentiment) on white scrap paper, trimmed, and affixed with thin foam squares. Easy peasy!

Fabulous Find — Embossing Plates

I love these new embossing strips from We R Memory Keepers. Unlike a larger plate that does an entire card front, these plates emboss small portions, offering great versatility. And they have a nifty grid to help keep things straight. Here are some ideas: Isn’t the camera wonderful? I used it three times to create the background. Then I took the  “thank you” plate, embossed it on scrap paper, cut it out and used it for the greeting. Here’s a detailed shot: I made a tag with the “just for you” plate: I used Core’dinations paper then sanded the raised portion to get a more distressed look and really show off the embossing. This is the first card I made using the plates: One always has to be the experiment, right? It’s a little hard to see the embossing on that particular paper, so here is a closer look: The heart was made by gluing scraps to another scrap sheet then cutting the heart shape using a Spellbinders’ Media Mixage Hearts One die. (This is one of my favorite ways to use up scraps … affixing them to larger sheets and die cutting shapes.) Thanks for stopping by!