Valentine Cards

Friday night I got the urge to make a whole pile of Valentine cards. I used cardstock, Ek success dimensional stickers and some doilies. I love how they turned out! Here is a video with the cards and a time lapse segment showing me making the cards and my cat helping. Enjoy!

Valentines {For Winter}

I am so inspired by Winter this month!! She is hosting a Valentine card drive for the children at St. Jude's hospital. I am going to try to get my 16 cards in the mail to her this week!! I have them all done...just don't ever seem to have time to hit the post office.




Its not to late to join in if you want to send a couple of cards, every single card will make a child feel better on Valentine's Day!! Here are the cards I am sending her!! I hope they make someone very happy and feel very special. I made 8 of each one.

A friend gave me this paper and I just fell in love with it on top of the blue cardstock. I hope boys don't mind getting a pink hippo...I am not sure if hippos are really gender specific....like boys are dogs and girls are cats....or whatever....

(Funny story: at school today the p.e. coach asked me about one of the drawings in the hall. After looking more closely at it....it did look like something totally inappropriate...but it said right on the drawing 'fling hipow' {flying hippo} It was colored with a flesh colored marker and it was a rather skinny, wrinkly hippo...if you can imagine that...I may have to share a picture of it...)

I really wanted this one to have some of the traditional valentine elements so I used some paper heart doilies behind the little panda. I am not so great at coming up with clever 'beary valentine' sayings so I just went with the standard 'be mine'.




I am feeling pretty good about my New Year's resolution....how is yours going?

Thanks for reading!
XOXO

Valentine Fever

I have been making Valentines like crazy.

I am really into simple cards.
I should probably make more cards with silly sayings...but that isn't really my reason for making cards....
I like good design and a pretty color scheme.

These cards were really easy to make using scraps of paper.

Above: All close to my heart...Below: same design with some Hambly!

A lot of the stamps I have been using came from the dollar stamp bin...and I tried to use a lot of punches this year!

This design is super simple to create over and over again.
All of these cards are going to a local hospital for Valentines Day.
I tried to make them non-gender specific....I guess men are used to getting pink/red Valentines??

Check back later this week to see the cards that I am sending to Winter for her St. Jude's card drive.
I hope to get them in the mail early this week...just waiting on the sun to shine so I can get a good picture of my last batch!

Thanks for reading!!

Color Inspiration.

One of the main reasons I started blogging a year-and-a-half ago, was because my friend (and Close to My heart Upline) Yvonne, showed me a card that she had created for a color inspiration challenge over at KWernerDesign. She explained all about blogging at our unit meeting that night and challenged us to use blogs for inspiration and start our own blog to create an online presence for our business.

I was HOOKED from that point on. I started doing tons of color challenges (and other challenges too) but Color Inspiration soon became my total favorite. It was the biggest motivator to get me to create a great card with a fabulous color scheme. When Kristina decided not to do the challenges anymore, I was pretty bummed, but totally understanding...she picked several favorites from the challenge and created a mosaic that linked back to each original card....I am sure it took hours!

The challenges taught me good design and craftsmanship and helped me meet a lot of really great bloggers! I was super excited this week to notice a new color challenge...sort of a one-time-only, (that's okay! Be sure to check out her weekly card videos for ideas and inspiration, they totally rock!!!) I am at home because of the weather and I was really struggling to get some mojo going this week. This color inspiration challenge was perfect!

Here is my card for this week's challenge. I used a stamp set by hero arts and some cardstock from Close to my heart. The little Matryoshka doll is paper pieced as I was trying to incorporate all the colors from the challenge. The bird cage paper is from Hambly....I LOVE my Hambly paper!! I have to have a really good reason to use it though...I am always afraid I will use it up too quickly. Check back tomorrow for an all-Hambly mini album I am finishing up!

My goal was to create a whole stack of Valentine cards for a swap later this month so I used up the rest of the birdcage paper (and traded the mustard + saffron for brown and green on some of the cards)

Some of you had asked about the deer that I used in some of these cards. He is a felt die cut from Close to My Heart....I only had one and I was hesitant to use him, because he is so cute...So I traced him onto cardstock and now I use that as a pattern on other papers so that I can re-create that same idea over and over....

I actually had a tricky time shooting the photos for these....It was WAY too cold to do it outside (I tried, but the -10 wind kept blowing them over) and it was right at sunset...around 5:00 pm....so the sun was quite harsh and kept making bright sun streaks and shadows everywhere whenever I tried to use my usual window to take the pictures.

Wouldn't this be a cute teacher Valentine?

Those little envelopes are waaaay easy to make. I used 2X2 squares, folded them in half and then in half the other way....and then you just fold the corners into the middle and viola, a cute little square envelope. I leave one corner up for the flap...and line it with a scrap of paper.... I practiced some stitching on cards again for the one above....I sewed that ribbon to the card.

The cupcake punch is from Martha Stewart. I used a scissor edging technique....where you scrape the edge of the cardstock with your scissors to rough it up....on a lot of my cards and elements.

That pink frame in the background in some of my pictures is from T.J. Max...I went there last week and bought a huge stack of cool frames...I am trying to decide what to put in them and where to hang them....I want to create a wall of cool frames, possibly on my mantle piece....this is an idea for one of them....It totally matched the color scheme so I had to use it in my pics!

Hope you are having a great week and staying super warm!! If you are making any Valentines, I would love to see them!! I looked online and couldn't find much in the way of inspiration!

A few last minute Valentines

I decided to go through my scrap box last night and use up stamped images and scraps of my favorite papers. I made a few little Valentines for the kids at school. I usually get 4-5 from students who remember to come to my room during the hustle and bustle of the Valentine parties. Here are the cards I came up with. They are one-sided with a few stamped hearts on the back. All of the supplies are from CTMH.

Color Inspiration Challenge #41

Whew it is Friday the 13th!!! I made this card last night for the Color Inspiration Challenge. I love the black and red combo. This card is pretty simple. I am trying to use up scraps! The black and white felt scrap is from Hobby Lobby, I am not sure of the brand. The red ribbon is from CTMH (and so are the stamps), the color is Cranberry. This is a very simple Valentines Day Card. I am excited to move on to spring...but I will miss V-day....I love hearts!

Sketch Challenge Valentine Shaker cards

Here are a couple of cards I made using the newest sketch from Paper Craft Planet.


These are SHAKER cards.

I really love how the Cranberry ribbon looks against the light blue paper. The beads inside the shaker are oldies but goodies...the light blue ones I got at a scrabooking store over 5 years ago....it was going out of business, but the brand is Magic Scraps. The little red buttons are from JoAnns. The buttons are from my stash and the stickers are from Wal-Mart. These were really fun to make since I am snowed in!! I just found out that I am going to be home again tomorrow!


I decided to make one more card using this sketch since I have a bunch of these die cut hearts from Close to My Heart. I used some felt ribbon from American crafts and a large flower from CTMH.

Color Inspiration Challenge #38

I am sooooo excited about the Color Inspiration Challenge this week! I couldn't stop making cards last night. I got some really cute new stickers from K&Company and they were perfect for this week's colors. I stayed up late making these cards and even made one more this morning!

Eeeek!! I don't have time for all the details for every card, but if you have a question email me. I made the round cards using my coluzzle and all of the stamps and colors are Close to My Heart.

SWEET Workshop Valentine Stuff

Hey everyone!! I am getting ready for a workshop tonight. I have about 5 gals coming over to make Valentine-themed stuff. I am really excited about the lip balm holder that I showed awhile back.

In addition to the lip balm holder, we will be making a treat folder too. This little treat box will fit over a box of candy hearts. I bought both the sour and the regular heart candies. The girls can pick out which one they want to go inside their treat holder. This was really easy to make. I ate the candy out of one of the treat holders and tore it open so that I could figure out where to score it. I laid the empty carton on top of my cardstock, made a little tick mark at the top and bottom and then scored.

I made a whole bunch of these little guys so that I could hide a note inside for the penny game that I play at my home gatherings. Anyway, it is secured with ribbon and a simple little scallop punch design on the front. Check out the super cute little safety pin that holds the 'love' tag in place!! I love it!!

While I am at it, here is a really simple box I made using Close to My Heart patterned paper. Inside the box there are four 3 1/2 cards.



AND OOH LA LA!! This is some lotion I got for Christmas from Victoria Secret!! I love it, so sweeeet!

Color Inspiration Challenge # 37

I have a quick post with this week's color inspiration challenge. I made 3 simple cards. One of them is for my dad for Valentine's Day. The patterned paper is from Paper Studio and the Chipboard is Basic Grey. The ribbon, heart stamp and chocolate textured cardstock is Close to My Heart. I wanted to make some cards that were more masculine. I dusted the heart with light blue chalk, but its hard to tell in the pictures. Enjoy!!