Valentines for my Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!! Well, not for long, but the spirit of love should live on throughout the year, right? :)

I made a couple of valentines for my sweet valentines, my girls, last night. I know - Eleventh hour, right? Story of my LIFE lately!!!

Anyway, I wanted to jump into My Pink Stamper's 10,000 Hits/Pinkalicious Blog Hop challenge, so I made the cards to fit the challenge - make a project using red, a circle, pink ribbon, two My Pink Stamper stamps, and a diecut.

This is what I came up with:

Front

Side

Inside

Back

Supplies:

• Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge for scalloped circle card base cut at 4 " and mat circle cut at 3.75"
• Cricut Gypsy Wanderings for heart cut at 2"
• Colorbok textured 12x12 paper purchased at Walmart
• Stampin' Up Pretty In Pink cardstock
• Stampin' Up Real Red cardstock
• Cuttlebug D'Vine Swirls embossing folder to emboss pink mat circle
• Stampin' Up Pretty In Pink 7/8"organza ribbon (purchased several years ago)
• "Love Always" and "Handmade with love by" sentiment stamps by My Pink Stamper 
• Stampin' Up Real Red dye ink

Simple, right? I left a lot of room on the inside of the cards to write a special message to each girl. The cards matched well with the gift bags full of girly goodness I gave them tonight. My valentines were spoiled with lip glosses, lotions, mini purse mirrors, cozy Aeropostale slipper socks, Aeropostale necklaces plus LOTS of yummy chocolates.

The My Pink Stamper set I used on the card is extra special because I won it at Robyn's class at CHA in July 2010!!

Emma of My Creative Time took this pic - so cool!!

What a craft geek I am here - My Scrap Queen tee

from Michael's (pink of course!) and wearing my

Cricut Imagine bug sunglasses on my head-LOL!

It was so much fun to meet these crafty celebs in person. They were all so fun!

Well, I gotta hit the mattress ball as my awesome "Nawlins" friend would say. Have a good remainder to your week all!



Valentine Card 2012

Hello, my fellow crafters! I hope you are having a great weekend! It's a bit cold here, but the sun is blinding shining so that is encouraging. :)

Here is my Valentine card for this year sent out to close family and friends:

The front

Yes, I still torture my girls by taking photos

of them for each of these smaller holidays.

I've done this every year since my now 13-year old

was 1 month old! Of course the first couple of years

I took them to a studio, but that got expensive so

I started doing my own when the oldest was 3.

I had photo cards printed prior to 2005,

but then I started making my own after that. 

I posted my past cards HERE. 

Closeup of my "heartstrings" - I love this twine!

Inside

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Deuteronomy 6:5

Close-up of my girls' individual photos

The ensemble with matching labels & valentine stamps!

The back of the card finished off with a Scrappy Moms stamp!

Card supplies:

• Black & white photos of my 2 beautiful daughters that are growing up WAY TOO FAST!!
• Cricut Lyrical Letters cartridge for the hearts on my "heartstrings"
• Georgia-Pacific white cardstock
• Recollections red cardstock for front photo matting
• Celebrate It Valentine ribbon from Michael's
• Valentine Twist Divine baker's twine purchased from My Craft Spot
• Gill Sans Ultra Bold font
• Deuteronomy 6:5 bible verse
• "Created by" stamp from Scrappy Moms' Everyday Greetings set 
• Stampin' Up Real Red dye ink 
• Christmas Red Stickles
• Micro Glue Dots to adhere Stickled hearts to baker's twine

I am entering my valentine in the following awesome challenges:

• Cricut Cardz Challenge # 101 "Be My Valentine!" - Make a card for Valentine's Day using any cartridge(s) and using any colors you'd like.
• Fantabulous Cricut Challenge # 97 "Love is In The Air" - include a heart on your project
• My Craft Spot # 47 Challenge Valentines! - make a card or treat packaging
• Paper Playtime Challenge # 67 Cricut Creations Using Hearts Or a Love Theme - Make any type of project using hearts or a love theme with your Cricut and any colors or cartridges you like 
• Scrappy Moms' Terrific Tuesday Challenge "Hearts Galore"- Use hearts as main design element
• Whimsical Designs Challenge # 42 "Colors of Love" - create any card/project and use the colors white, red, and one other color of your choice

Phew! So many many wonderful challenges! Thanks so much for visiting.

 

Have a very HappyValentine's Day on Tuesday!

Cards from Valentine's Days Past

Like the holidays since last Mother's Day, I've been doing posts for my past cards as a resource for me on my blog.

Here are my cards from Valentine's Days in past years:

2005 - Front and Back

2006 - Front (Inside photo MIA)

2007

2007-inside

2008 - Front and inside

2009

2009 Inside

2010

2010 - inside

2011's card can be seen HERE.

For holidays like this, I only make cards for close family and friends, which totals 20 or slightly under.

Now I'm almost caught up with past cards to post! I just need to do Easter cards within the next couple of months. 

I should be back soon to post 2012's Valentine card that I've been working on this past week. Thanks for stopping by and looking at my old cards! :)

You've Been BUGGED!! ~ Valentine Office Fun!

Happy February, my fellow crafters!

Since it's the month of Valentine's Day already (YIKES!), I wanted to start the month off with a valentine-ish project. I sure do need to get going on my valentines, but they will have to wait until this weekend (insert deep sigh here). The girls' activities and my work have just had me too busy!!

Speaking of work, I wanted to perk up my office during the mid-winter blahs with a little fun similar to "You've Been Boo-ed!" that I did back near Halloween (See post HERE). I surfed and surfed the net and really couldn't find something like it for Valentine's Day. I liked the Cupid Poop poems, but I thought that it was boring for people to keep giving candy to each other.

Soooo, taking off from the Boo'ed concept, I created this:

I think everyone will get a kick out of putting the

sign up by their desks that says "Don't BUG me!"

That will really show off our customer service- LOL!

One of the complaints from the boo'ed game in October was that people had to do two treats (and some people went overboard with what they gave), and also we started running out of co-workers to boo. So, I thought I would get it going by bugging two people, but then after that, each person would only have to assemble one treat. Hopefully this will work out better.
Here are my treats that I will secretly place on two of my co-workers' desks today:

This is how they will look when first given . . .

The pink mailbox!

Yep, still obsessed with vinyl! I had so much fun

with the mailboxes I decorated for Christmas gifts (HERE)

that I just couldn't pass up these Target dollar section cuties!

And the classic valentine red mailbox!

I will flip if my recipients win the $1000 a week for life!

This Target sticky note pad is so cheery-

much needed in our boring office! 

And could one ever go wrong with chocolate????

Here are the mailboxes dumped out . . .

Another fun sticky notepad from Target!

Supplies:

• Cricut Quarter Note cartridge for name lettering (welded on my Gypsy)
• Cricut Designer's Calendar cartridge for heart
• Cricut white indoor vinyl
• Metal mailboxes from the dollar section of Target
• A rolled up copy of the sheet shown above rubber-banded to mailbox flag (I forgot to add it before I took pics, but I did add valentine ribbon from Michael's and tied it in a pretty bow which covered up the rubber band-Oops!)
• Love Bug graphic found on the internet HERE
• GeoSlab703 XBd BT font for headings
• Kabel Bt BT font for body text
• DelRay font for "Happy Valentine's Day"
• Instant lottery tickets
• Ande's Valentine mint chocolates with sweet thoughts/messages on them
• Lindt Lindor chocolate truffles
• Reese's peanut butter chocolate hearts
• Sticky note pads from Target's dollar section

Hope you enjoyed and are inspired to start something fun like this in your own workplace! Help yourself to the sheet I created. All I ask is that you credit me and leave me a comment that you used it! I would love to see your take on it! :)

I am entering this fun "party-starter" in Decorate to Celebrate's Valentine Party challenge!

Thanks for stopping by!

Heart-y Hand Soap!

Hi all!

Well I'm happy to report that I survived my daughter's birthday beach party! It was actually a lot of fun! I still need to edit all of the photos, but once I do I will do a party post.

In the meantime, here is a quick post on the hand soap I decorated for the Valentine holiday season. I purchased this soap 50% off after Christmas from Bath & Body Works. I just checked, and they still have the Winter Candle Apple holiday scent that I used for this project. I just peeled off the label and voila! Soap ready to decorate!

Supplies:

• Cricut Lyrical letters cartridge (I did a search on my Gypsy and liked the heart on this cartridge the best out of what I had)
• Bath & Body Works Winter Candy Apple Moisturizing Antibacterial Soap
• Red Outdoor vinyl purchased from expressionsvinyl.com (I figured it will get wet a lot, so outdoor was the best choice)

As you can see, this was an easy peasy project, and is an inexpensive way to decorate for the holidays. Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a great week!

Valentine Cards 2011

Here is my valentine card for this year sent to close family showcasing the photo shoot torture for my girls!

I must admit that this card is not one of my faves that I've made. I had it in my head that I would use the conversation hearts from the Simply Charmed Cricut cartridge, but the card turned out a bit plain and the color of the prints were off from my cardstock colors. But, I like the photos and at this point in my jam-packed life, it got the "It'll have to do" stamp of approval from me. I seem to be doing that a lot lately!!

 The font I used for the inside of my cards is called Hank BT.

Another valentine card I made was just me playing around with ideas for a really good friend of mine who is having a Valentine tea party for her daughter this coming weekend. It is an invitation using the Once Upon a Princess cartridge. The hearts were stickled onto the paper doll's dress and the tea pot. I so wish I were going to this party! My friend has been sending me photos of crafty things she's made for it so I just know it will be a FABULOUS event! Her daughter is one lucky girl . . . :)

Well, that's it for this post. We're getting toward the weekend, so enjoy it my paper-loving friends!!

Valentine Teacher Appreciation Luncheon Favors

This week my daughters' school is having a teacher appreciation luncheon, so I made these little favors for it with my daughter! The theme of the luncheon is "comfort food," so there are a lot of yummy dishes being made! Thankfully I'm not doing any cooking, but I thought that being able to take a couple of chocolate mints back to their desks afterward would be nice.

I used the following:

•  Forever Young Cricut cartridge to make the holder (pg 72, purse creative feature cut at 5 1/4")
• Red cardstock
• A sheet of Recollections white glitter chipboard-like cardstock from Michael's for the hearts
• Designer's Calendar Cricut cartridge to cut heart
• Valentine ribbon from Michael's
• Ziggy Zoe font wording printed on white cardstock and punched using the Stampin' Up small tag punch
• 2 Andes Mints per holder

There is a bible verse on the tag, which is Colossians 3:23:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.

Then below the verse it says:

Thank you for caring for our children with all your heart!

All 36 favors plus an extra for me to keep are all done and ready to be delivered to school this week. These were very fun to make!

Have a good week fellow crafters!!