Happy Valentine's Day!

It's finally here! It's my fave holiday! It's such a pink, red, sparkly, fluffy, candy eating, love filled, sqooshy kind of day! Just perfect for a hopeless romantic, princess mentality pirate girl like me! I am so excited! I plan to spend my night with the love of my life at my happiest place on earth - The Magic Kingdom. What could be better than spending time with your guy standing in front of Cinderella's Castle? And I can have a Dole Whip too! Score! :)

So, since I already shared all the easel cards I sent out to family and friends, I thought I would share what I made for my 2 guys for Valentine's this year.

For Wonder Boy I made him a Candy bouquet. I have always thought they were cute but way too expensive. I was pretty sure I could make my own version much cheaper and I did. I bought a Valentine bucket and shoved in 2 pieces of floral foam to fit. I taped the candy bars to the back of wooden skewers and shoved them into the foam at various heights. I did discover that it was tippy while I was working on it so I poured in a few flat glass marbles into the bottom for weight. After the candy was in place I topped it with some manly pink shredded paper and it is finished! Ta-Da. Easy Peasy! :) I'll probably wrap it up with some cellophane and tie on a bow before tonight.

Here is his card using one of my fave stamp sets from Stampin' Up, Unfroggetable. I think it is just corny enough he will like it!

For Hubs I made his card from a scrapbook paper pack I acquired from who knows where. It was all black, red, winged hearts and such.....so perfect for Valentine's Day. I love all the rhinestone sparklies and winged hearts. The envie is actually my fave part.....I think it is awesome with the black paper and swirls.

For his gift I baked his very fave thing.....his Grandmother's Pound cake. He LOVES this. It is amazing.....if pound cake is great on it's own.....this version has a topping made from vanilla wafers & Pecans.....topped with a vanilla glaze and garnished with Maraschino Cherries and pecan halves. And there's not a calorie in it.....honestly! LOL  Each batch makes 3 cakes and I made him 2 batches......think he'll be happy for awhile? So that's Valentine's Day here in FL! Wishing you oodles of LOVE today and every day! :)

2 more journals and some Valentine ART....

...as you know by now I really enjoy making these journals. These 2 are similar in design (which I rarely do), but I just could "see" both of them. One is for Journals of Love and the other is for a glitter and bling ART lottery in one of my Yahoo groups. I really like the colors in these papers (And they aren't even PINK!!)

My fave Holiday is Valentine's Day so you will be seeing quite a bit of Heartsy ART for a bit! This is my first ever easel card. I really like this concept. It was fina nd much easier than I thought it would be. I have a feeling there will be quite a few recipients of Valentine's Day easel cards in 2011! :) I used my fave envie template that fits a square card that whn sealed on the bottom half open up into a heart. Perfect for my fave holiday!

Finally, I signed up for a make two 4x4's in a Valentine's theme.I really like the addiiton of the vintage BINGO card in the background. And, well, everyone needs a crown, don't you think?

Valentine's Day ART....

Woot! Woot! My fave ART holiday is on it's way. The new swaps for one of my ART groups were just posted and I have completed 3 of the 5 so far. I still have an easel card and a cupcake recipe card to finish.

First up is a Tag that must feature the word "love" on it. Okay, I have tons of love stamps. So, I grabbed a fave pink paper and a fave image and began to build from there.

LOVE Tag front

LOVE Tag back

LOVE Tag close-up

LOVE Tag front

Next up was an altered Cabinet Card. I really like making these. Back in June I made 3 patriotic ones. I knew that I wanted a wedding pic since it was for Valentine's Day. I placed the image on a BINGO card and replaced the letters with LOVE and a heart. I made a heart background from a vintage hymnal and outlined it with white buttons. I added my 2 fave trims: glitter and baby rick rack. It still needed "something." I was standing there gazing at my embellishment jars when I saw "THE" perfect thing. I have a jar of little gold interlocking wedding rings. I added them with some Diamond Glaze and she is finished. I LOVE how it turned out! :)

Altered Cabinet Card

Altered Cabinet Card

Finally we were to make 3 "Kissing Dangles". I had never heard of them but that's never stopped me before. I did mine a bit differently (yeah, like that's a surprise). I used copper wire with my beads and made the dangles longer. I used coordinating images for each and layered their papers and added in some glitter (GASP!).I can see where I would change things up next time, but not too bad for a first attempt.

Kissing Dangle

Kissing Dangles

Kissing Dangles

Kissing Dangle

Kissing Dangle

Kissing Dangle

Kissing Dangle

Kissing Dangle



Kissing Dangles - Bad pic I know bu you can "see" all of them! :)

I'm hoping to find some more ART to swap for Valentine's Day! If you're interested....give me a holler! :)

Valentine Heart Hangie Danglie

LOVE is in the air.....every sight and every sound......

Valentine's Day is MY fave holiday. You will be seeing a whole LOT of LOVE around my blog for the next month!! :) Here is today's offering.

I signed up for a Valentine Hangie Danglie mingle awhile back. I didn't take step-by-step photos but I think you'll get the idea!! I used Andrew's Cheerios box for the hearts so it is a repurpose project as well.

I cut 2 hearts using a stencil. I cut out the patterned paper about an inch or so wider all around the heart shape. I just eyeballed it and cut it with scissors and glued each one down. I cut tiny "notches" from the outside edge of the Patterned paper to the edge of the cardboard heart. I ran a line of adhesive around the outer edge of the cardboard hearts and folded each little "tab" to the back. I added another line of adhesive around the edges and center of one heart and placed the sparkly lace trim, then glued the two hearts together.

The heart has tiny spots of Martha Stewart Pink Tourmaline glitter and highlights of my fave Sakuara Stardust gel pen on both sides. I punched a hole for the Danglie and glued the black ribbon hanger to the back.

The danglie is made from 8 scrapbook punch out letters, glittered, glued back to back, punched and connected with jump rings. They are attached to the heart with a beaded wire circle and finished off with a hanging red faceted crystal bead. This is headed to my friend Wanda so I hope she enjoys it!! :)

Masterboard Technique and Results

Over at one of my Yahoo groups, we are having new techniques on Fridays. The first one was called Masterboard. Basically you take a piece of cardstock and some stamps and literally fill the page. You random stamp your images beginning with the largest and continuing on down the line until it is filled. Then, using dtp (direct to paper) color in your page with random splotches of color. The key here for both of these steps is DON'T THINK.....JUST DO. You want it be unplanned. Then you cut up (or tear up) pieces of these sheets and make new ART projects with them Our challenge was to make 6 cards. I stated with one 12 x 12 sheet of pink cardstock since I wanted to do a Valentine theme. I managed to make 6 cards, 1 book mark, 1 ATC and 1 Tag with my sheets.

The supplies I used for the masterboard were: Jet Black Stazon Ink, Pink Cardstock, a handful of Valentine Rubber Stamps and some coordinating cat's eyes chalk ink pads.

To finish off the ART projects I used: White Glue, Martha Stewart Black Onyx Glitter, Black Cardsotck, Glossy White Cardstock, Tape Runner Adhesive, Xyron Sticker Maker, Paper Punches: 1" & 1 1/8" Squares and Round Hole Punch, and bits of Vintage Black Lace.

Here is the stamped Masterboard after stamping.


Here is the stamped Masterboard after coloring.

The finished ART pieces.

My fave card......you can barely see the Versamark Stamping on the Black Cardstock in this view. If you click the pics to see them larger it is visible on them all!! :)

Card #2

Cards 3 & 4....simple yet effective

Card 5 & 6

The Tag, ATC & Bookmark

Valentine Masterboard #2 step #1

Valentine Masterboard #2 step #2

Blue Moom Masterboard step #1

Blue Moon Masterboard step #2

Here are a few links to some more Masterboard Inspiration: here, here and here.

It's amazing to me how I like them when they have just been stamped until they are colored. What a difference it makes. So, will you try this technique in your ART studio? Please leave me a link if you do!! :::smiles:::

Valentines and Love are in the air.....

.....February 14th is my fave Holiday. I've begun full-scale work on Valentine's Day projects. Some are for swaps, some for gifts, some are cards but most will be for my shops!! I'll be sharing as I go. Just like at Christmas when I did two 12 Days of Christmas Countdown swaps.......I'm doing the 14 Days of Valentines with many of the same wonderful ARTists!! It is again hosted by my friend Jeri http://artfulgathering.typepad.com/. I have completed the packaging/wrappings for the gifties and have begun work on the actual gifties themselves. Sadly, I can't share them here until later!! :(

I see that this is post #96. I'll have to plan something special for #100. I'm thinking maybe a giveaway of some sort. Hmmmmm......I'll be thinking on that one!! Today, Aunt Rita is stopping by on her way from Illinois to Florida!! It will be fun to see someone from back home. The last family members I saw were my parents back in March!! Should be fun!!

Anywho, here are a few of the goodies I 'can' share that I purchased for the big "V" day!! Gotta love the dollar bins at Michaels!! :::Smiles::: Plus I have purchased all sorts of RED trims, ribbons, beads, glitter and wrapping papers from the Walmart Christmas clearance section. Later Taters......have to fly!!