A few more Valentines

I love the look of Mary Engelbreit's graphic style. It was fun to find a set of stickers of her art. Combined with a little border & square punching, die cute hearts and gel pen you have a Valentine. The floral heart and sentiment were early stamp purchases from Stampa Rosa. I still use them and love them. The corner flourish and the floral embossing folder framing the stamps seem just right together. Gold heat embossing still excites me.

Outlines Stamps has some to my eye very modern images which are so much fun to color. I used Twinkling H2Os on this heart along with Distress inked and dotted edging. Imagine, I made a Valentine with no flowers on it!

Valentines

I went shopping. You can imagine all the good stuff I found. The ribbon which matches a Cuttlebug embossing folder and a Martha Stewart border punch which has Valentine written all over it. The background stamp is an old dollar stamp from Michaels. The corrugated paper is packaging for a light bulb. The hearts are cut using Nestability scalloped hearts. There are some little Stampendous heart stickers and red Stickles embellishing the embossed heart. I had a great longing to make the sort of Valentine which wouldn't hold up in the mail. While looking in Susan Pickering Rothamel's book, The Encyclopedia of Greeting Card Tools and Techniques, I was inspired by one of the cards to pull out my netting and play with it on a card. The book is wonderful by the way! The heart stamp is one from Stampers Anonymous. The sentiment is a dollar stamp from Michaels. I got into my bead stash which was very fun. The flourishes and flowers are die cut with a Cuttlebug die.

My stamping friend Ann RAK'd me some Co'ordinations cardstock! Talk about yummy! After embossing it using a Cuttlebug folder I sanded it lightly so the purple core shows through. The purple heart is embossed, or really debossed with the same folder. It was highlighted with a Brilliance pad. The flower and ribbon were both RAKs too. Am I lucky or what? The little heart button in the flower's center had the shank clipped off and was colored with permanent markers.

Happily I will be hand delivering these Valentines on Sunday to my girl friends when we gather for our annual Valentine making party. Such fun!

Stars and Stamps sketch 2

Here is the fun new sketch from the OWH Stars and Stamps blog. Way to go Karen! I went vintage for my sketch cards. This one says "Letters are always welcome". Think our soldiers might find that a handy sentiment. ;-)

Another perfect poem for our troops:

"When time hangs heavy on my hands

And everything seems blue

There's nothing quite as welcome

As a nice long letter from you"

And this one says:

"When of me you sometimes think

Go right for the pen and ink

There is nothing suits us better

Than to get a newsy letter."

All these wonderful vintage postcard images are available for free at the Clearly Vintage blog in their Saturday Image Bonus. The ones I used are WWI vintage postcard images.

I used images the first two links http://clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/2009/05/memorial-day-bonus-4.html http://clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/2009/05/memorial-day-bonus-5.htmlhttp://clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/2009/05/memorial-day-bonus-2.htmlhttp://clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/2009/05/memorial-day-bonus-day-1.html
4th of July vintage postcard images http://clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/2009/07/saturday-image-bonus-90.html

If you have questions leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer!

A Case of CASE-ing!

A recent challenge at the Stars and Stamps blog was to CASE one of the bloggers on their blog roll. I went a little nuts for Stephanie's Seashell card from SR Cards blog and CASE'd it and CASE'd it! You can see her card here- http://srcards.blogspot.com/2010/01/seashells.htmlThese two are also for the children's Thinking of You challenge at Operation Write Home. The 3D embellishments are by Crayola. The sentiment is from Hero Arts. I was asked about the line of red around the cards. I used a ruler and drew it with red gel pen. The cards below have a gold line also drawn with gel pen using a ruler. Thanks for asking!

Here are a couple of romantic cards. Good for anniversaries and just to say I love you. These 3D embellishments were a RAK. The sentiment was printed using the computer.

Another S and S sketch #1 card

This adorable little doll is from Hero Arts. It is hard not to smile back at her. The little flowers are clear stamps that are just tiny. They made a good frame for the Asian Doll. I liked the simplified version of the Stars & Stamps sketch. The printed paper is from a DCWV stack.

Stars & Stamps Sketch

The rabbit is a vintage embroidery design that I printed out and colored. The patterned papers and from Rubber Soul. They seem to say "Spring" to me. I didn't put a sentiment on it so it could be used whenever. The Stars and Stamps sketch

http://www.owhstarsandstamps.org/2010/01/s-sketch-challenge-01.html was fun and easy. Thanks Sandy!

Washi Valentines

Both of these are based on a sketch by Jen del Muro.

http://iheart2stamp.com/2009/12/26/up-for-grabs-sketch-for-you-to-try/ I came across the stamp stashed in a drawer and knew I wanted to use it. I love washi and origami papers but tend to hoard them, lol. The sketch and the stamp encouraged me to pull out the paper and play. It is difficult to tell but I used a brushed silver paper to mat and on the flower bases. Cuttlebug dies and a Dollar Tree punch.
On this one I did some paper piecing and some torn paper hearts. I had fun layering punchies to create the flower embellishments. The folk art heart dies are from Sizzix. The stamp used on both cards is from Stampabilities.