A day late...

...for you to see all the goodies I made for Valentine's Day. The good news, however, is that they were done in time for all the festivities.

I do hope that all of you had a Valntine's Day with all the trimmings that you all so greatly deserve!

Normally I would have to say that I am NOT a fan of the clear acrylic stamps. I'm just a real rubber kind of gal. Having said that, I have to admit I am very impressed with the Papertrey Inks sets that I ordered specifically for Valentine's Day! I just could not resist the images! They are very well thought out and both the Tiny Treats Valentine's and the Simple Valentine sets work fabulously together.

Now, I am NOT on their design team and do not receive any $$ from them for my opinion. So, having said all that, I have to tell you I am impressed with Papertrey Ink. First, they released this set in December I believe. Plenty of time for me to plan for the next holiday. Also, when they released the images for this set, it came with a blog hop showing a bunch of fabulous ideas of how to use these sets. Then, when I decided I wanted these, and I had enough time to save and budget for these. (Let's face it, we are all having budget issues!)

I ordered them online about mid-January and they arrived in just a couple days!! AND when I opened the box I was very pleased with their packaging!! First of all, no nasty environmentally UNfriendly styrofoam peanuts!! BLEH!

Of course there was packaging paper, that I promptly added to the fire box. Here is the cool part though! Each set was in an adorable clear box, that can easily be repurposed later as a fabulous creation. (These boxes were nicely wrapped in tissue, btw.) Then included inside the box was a CD case to store the stamps, indexing sheets for the CD case, along with a label for the spine to make them easy to locate. The stamps were on some clear acetate, which can be reused in another project, of course. It also included an instruction sheet with care recommendations and tips for usings your stamps. Plus it also referenced their website where all the blog hop ideas can be found easily. Cool, huh?

And just look at how amazingly cute the images look! And they all have sayings that totally compliment the images. This set is perfect for the kiddo's valentines and I think I have been searching for a set just like this for 13 years!

These are the treats we sent to school with Megan and Dom for their classmates. I used the Shadowbox BigzXL plate from Sizzix to create the boxes. Cute, huh? And, as you can see the Tiny Treats Valentine set was PERFECT!!

So, there I was on Thursday night, realizing I didn't have anything special for the teachers. Instead of instant panic, I quickly went to Julie's Blog and quickly found the perfect idea! Gotta love Jewels! She always exemplifies SIMPLE, SMART, SOPHISTICATED!!! How easy to compliment this idea easily with the Papertrey Ink sets along with my JustRite What's Cookin' Borders & Centers. Love it!!

I know these adorable petal card treats have made the rounds, but you know, I've actually discovered that a great idea just never gets old. These were fantastically popular with my sorority sisters. Let's face it, we ALL love to get treats!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, I had to slip in one more Valentine card, of course. Afterall, today is the day! Here is a card I actually copied from a card in the Current catalog. (One would wonder why I even receive those. I've never ordered anything!!) Anyway, theirs had only one envelope (or picture of an envelope, can't remember right now) but I like the this better. I love these little stamps in the Forever set! They really go together quite nicely. Who wouldn't want to hear, "Be mine forever love" on Happy Heart Day. The envelopes were created from pink vellum with an envelope punch I own.

The cardbase is white textured cardstock from the Neutrals cardstack and the words are stamped on a scrap of Glossy White with Claret ink. My DD Rebecca says it needs something else, like a ribbon under the envelopes or across the bottom, and maybe it does. I kind of like the simplicity and the words stand out much better this way. What do you think? The first person to leave a comment on this post will get a special Love minibook just ready for photos!! How's that for a tempting offer?? My first "Blog Candy!"

Amelia Paper & Hearts

The first time I saw TAC Amelia paper, my first thought was, "It's perfect for Christmas!" And, it is featured with the Christmas stamps in our catalog. But, it's such beautiful paper and very multi-functional. So, I challenged myself to use it for Valentine's. In these cards, I admit, I used the very plain single colored paper, but it sure worked well!

Check it out. Do you think Hearts when you see red & green? Probably not! In fact, don't most people think Christmas? Well, here is my take on a red & green Valentine card. I used the green paper from the Amelia collection with scarlet and ivory cardstock. The card base piece was originally 5.5x 8.5 but I cut an inch off to use it for the small pieces on the front. The card front measures 2.25x7.5. The gold embossing with the Heartitude set looks good too! To get the effect on the ivory cardstock squares, I made a two templates from a post-it note and sponged on L'Amore red ink. The heart in the middle was used as a template and then set off the the side with a pop dot.

This card uses the darker paper from Amelia as the background. I thought it looked really nice with the "cracked glass." I've been looking for a project to use this technique and this seemed like a good opportunity. (This will be one of the tech's for February's class on the 5th.)

For the plus and the equal signs I had enough left from the strip I cut from the previous card to cut these out. I know it's a corny concept...but the card turned out kinda cute, eh? The flowers were stamped with Landscape and colored with Tombow markers. Burnt Umber was used for that aged look.

Back to Hearts for Valentine's Day

Here are a couple more samples for Valentine's. Of course, there are other times to use these fabulous love themed cards too! Every day is a good day to share a little love, afterall, it IS what the world needs now! Both of these use the Love Doodles set and some Sands of Time paper along with some of the improved Brown cardstock.

The first sample is on a Pink cardstock base with stamping versamarked & sanded for a background. The focal point is mounted on Sands of Time paper that has been edged with Burnt Umber & then distressed. The circle "love" images are stamped on white cardstock with Claret, circle punched and mounted on a larger brown cardstock circle. The ribbon was added with glue dots and then mounted to the card with pop dots (can't tell that from the photo, huh?) I love the Pop dots! It really gives your creations dimension!

Here's a tip: Don't throw out that foam after you've used all your dots! Cut it into pieces & use that as mounting foam for larger pieces or small cut-to-fit areas!

I decided it's best to post these 2 samples together since they seemed to look quite a bit alike when I looked at them. Sample 2 has a brown cardstock base and Sands of Time as a background for the focal point edged with brown ribbon. "Love" is also stamped on the lower right corner on this piece with Burnt Umber. The hearts are stamped on Sands of Time with Burnt Umber and jazzed up with Pink Stickles. These pieces have also been edge distressed. I found these mini spiral embellishments on a Hobby Lobby trip and they turned out to work very nicely for the ribbon on the corner of these little squares but, you could use some cute safety pins here also. Each piece is mounted with a pop dot over more Sands of Time paper that has been edged with, you guessed it... Burnt Umber!

I do have a few more samples to post for Valentine ideas then we really will have to move on to something else!

Tag Valentine

Another easy Masculine Valentine card. I used the Winchester cardstock, ribbon, and paper. The eyelets came from the Hemingway hardware. "Love" from the Love Doodles set is stamped on a tag with Burnt Umber Palette pad and embossed with the Transcendance Powder. You gotta love that stuff! Embossing in any color ink and fabulous detail!
That "love" stamp fit very nicely on the tag, don't you think? That is layered onto another tag with pop dots and then added to the cardstock with the purple ribbon. The circled hearts are stamped down the side with a Wheat Versamagic pad. The Y*O*U from Mini-bet is added using Burnt Umber also. A very simple, plain jane kind of card.

More for Valentine's

Just finished doing a BUNCH of sample sheets. Whew!

I wanted to get one more heart card in before the weekend is completely over! This one is done on birch cardstock and complimented with Sand of Time. The background hearts are stampe with Pearlescent Beige and the heart in You is filled in with pink Stickles.

Masculine Valentine cards

Have you ever gone (somewhere in the far distant past, of course, for anyone who stamps) to get your hubby a nice card for Valentine's Day at the local "you-know-where" store and faced rows and rows of pink, flowery, feminine cards? Even the cards intended for your male spouse just didn't look "masculine."

Well, thank goodness I stamp!! Isn't it great that we can make our own color combinations? I selected the Winchester paper collection for this card along with the Love Doodles stamp set.

The glittery hearts on the bottom were covered with the crystal lacquer and then covered with the prisma glitter. Did you notice the 1st, 3rd, and 5th heart have more glitter? Silly me left the glitter on a bit too long before dumping it off. It did make an interesting effect with the other 2 hearts though. What do you think?