7th Annual Valentine Rakarama

It's time again for the valentine rakarama. This year I was pondering what to make and having no ideas. I was in Joann's at the beginning of January - and they had little trees with hearts on them. Ding! I remembered i had a very cute Purple Onion Designs tree branch stamp as well as some hearts from POD - a card is born.
I set about making my card background from paper i had around (i believe that's some old basic grey you see on the left side of the card) - some plain cardstock on the bottom right and the top right was made using the beauteous Purple Onion damask stamp.
I stitched all the backgrounds and got a little sidetracked - thinking wouldn't this be a pretty quilt?
I decided I'd dress up that largest heart by decorating it with a sparkly pen. As far as the little lines i drew for the hearts to "hang" from - well who knew it would be so hard to draw a straight line? well, i did.... but i did it anyway. some were more successful than others. I cut the circles with my nestabilities and finished off the card with a hand written sentiment and a bow. Here's a pic of them all done - wow that's a lotta little bows huh?
So what else have I been doing - besides making valentines? Working, shoveling, watching some Project Runway and the Bachelor (great accompaniment when you're decorating wee hearts and tying bows). Friday night we drove to see my daughter perform in a play. Long drive there and back but it was totally worth it! She was amazing (but i knew that already...)
Happy Valentine's Day kids!

valentines for family

I started all my valentines a month ago. I knew I wanted to do cards for my family and then another bunch of cards for the online group i belong to (- my 7th annual Valentine rakarama - I'll post pics of those tomorrow.) I'd been to stamp camp in early January and broke down and ordered the adorable Stampin Up! set Sweetheart, the heart shaped treat cups and the heart punch. Just too cute - I decided to practice "make do" another day LOL! I got the clear mount version of the stamps - they're still red rubber but not mounted on wood - repositionable on clear blocks. I love them. They store in what amounts to an elongated cd case (makes me want to unmount a lot of stamps and get more of those cd cases - i'd free up a ton of space here in my little room here - but not a project i'm going to get involved in right now!) My StampinUp! demo had used m&m's to fill the treat cups - and I did the same for some of my cards. But I had a number of recipients who don't eat milk chocolate. I began to search for dark chocolate Valentine m&m's and ya know what? Even the dark chocolate ones contain milk chocolate (not going to work for my vegan recipients.) So in these pics you'll see I filled some with teeny cinnamon candy hearts and conversation hearts. (by the way, they've ruined the conversation hearts - they're now fruit flavored - blech. The whole nostalgia moment I get from eating them was destroyed when i popped one in my mouth....). Ok that's all for today my dears. I'll post some more valentines tomorrow!