The 11th Annual Valentine Rakarama

Good Morning Friends. Yes it is that time of year - time for my 11th Annual Valentine Rakarama. What is that you say? Well it's when I send Valentines to my crafty friends (and a few non-crafty ones). I heard the term "Gal-en-tines" recently and that sums it up nicely. Valentines for girlfriends. Honestly I need very little excuse to send a card - but Valentine's Day is probably my favorite. I've got most of my previous Rakarama's tagged in the column to your right if you're interested in years previous. In past years, I have challenged myself to make each Valentine different. Last year I made them all the same and this is what I chose to do gain this year. I made 25 of these. Yes, I think I need my head examined some days. The initial idea came to me when Papertrey Ink introduced a stamp set in December. It's called Love You To Pieces. While that main set is quite nice, it was the Additions version that caught my eye. It had that sentiment - love you to pieces - in it. And I thought of pieces as puzzle pieces. I have some Quickutz puzzle piece dies I thought I would use for the cards. Fast forward to middle/end of January and I decided I really wanted entire puzzles to be included in the card. (this is how these simple ideas evolve into a little bit of crazy).

Life got busy and I wasn't able to begin my valentines until Monday... yes.. this week. I worked on them on Monday and Tuesday and had them all in the mail on Wednesday. I created the puzzles on my Silhouette Portrait. I used the print & cut feature - printing out hearts that I filled with a pattern. I stamped them all with an old sentiment stamp from StampinUp that I love. Then I returned the whole thing to my Silhouette to cut out the puzzles. (The pic I've included here shows the first go around when I stamped after I cut the puzzles.) It worked like a charm. I'd never used the print & cut feature before but it couldn't have been easier.

I put the puzzle pieces in glassine envelopes I'd gotten from PTI. I sealed those envelopes with stickers I also made on my Silhouette. I used PTI Sticker Paper and did that print & cut again - just created small hearts with the words "open here" - printed and cut them out. I did stamp the wee chevron patterns on each one using PTI's Bitty Blocks II. I tied on some PTI Rustic Cream twine (that took longer than anything I did on ese cards!).The rest of the card was a bit simpler. I stamped and embossed (PTI White Filigree EP) the tiny hearts onto vellum using PTI's Background Basics: Hearts. Attached that to the background cardstock and topped it with a heart doily I bought at Michaels. The bag o'puzzle pieces was attached then and finally I added the heart (also cut on the Silhouette) which I stamped with that cute sentiment (love you to pieces) which started this whole thing!

I'm really pleaseD with how they came out if I do say so myself. It's very "Valentine" and that's what I was shooting for. 

I'll share some other valentine's I made in the next day or so. Until then, have a lovely Valentine's Day with the ones you love. Thanks for stopping by.