The 10th Annual Valentine Rakarama!

I cannot believe it's been 10 years since I started my little tradition of sending Valentines to my crafty girlfriends. I really look forward to it every year. Valentine's are probably my favorite card to make. I don't know why, but there is something about making Valentines. Even just sending Valentines. Love it.
I clearly remember - going back to elementary school - going to the Pharmacy in my little town in northern New Jersey (we moved there when I was 8 from New York) and buying my very own Valentines. They were Peanuts :-) You know, Charlie Brown, Snoopy... Yes, we normally made our Valentines.... using doilies naturellement! but I was in love with Snoopy at the time. And they were such pretty Valentines. I even had a red Flair marker (for those of us who are a certain age.... Flairs were big back then. It was the beginning of my life long obsession with pens. But I digress... you knew I would....) I wrote each Valentine with my best handwriting with that red pen and I was the happiest little girl. Ahhhh.

So fast forward (we shall skip the number of years ... suffice it to say The Beatles had played Ed Sullivan a few years before LOL) and I'm still doing my Valentine thing. With the hope that the recipients will know I'm thinking about them - sending lots of XOXO

For those of you who are familiar with my Rakarama (i've got some previous years linked up in the sidebar - just haven't gotten around to linking them all) in the past I've taken to challenging myself to making each Valentine different - sort of the "snowflake" of valentines... no one valentine exactly the same. Well, this year that wasn't happening. I've got some stuff preoccupying my life right now so I had to go a more simple route. Well... nothing with me is quite simple. I got started and kept adding things and well... it took a while to assemble them all. I'm up to about 30 Valentines this year.

I started thinking of these valentines back in December - knowing I wanted to use a tag and a wee paper bag (some of you know I love paper bags.... and kraft cardstock). January 1st rolled around and I started getting serious. I thought I had some little paper bags in my stash but they were no where to be found so I grabbed some at Michaels. I had been looking around online and found a very pretty patterned paper I just couldn't forget - and with me - that's the sign I must purchase LOL. So I bought a bunch of this patterned paper - from My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Record It!
The stamp set is from Wplus9 - Valentine Wishes - can I say how much I am in love with this set? I am in love with this set! The calligraphy, the banners, the fleurs. Too fabulous for words. I stamped the sentiment with StampinUp Purely Pomegranate (not even sure if they make that anymore?) - it was just the perfect red to go along with the patterned paper and the beautiful Bazzill cardstock (Juneberry).
I'm going to discuss the banner area in a minute.
A few more notes - the tag was cut from kraft cardstock using PTI's Tag Sale #7 die. The little heart tag tied on at the top was cut using Tiny Tags from PTI.
The pink cardstock - which is just the perfect shade of pink - is from Wplus9 - called Ballet Slippers - the most aptly named cardstock if there ever was one.
I used a scallop border die from PTI as well.
The heart doily - is just that - a heart doily - got a whole pack of those a while ago and put them away for a rainy day - or Valentines ;-)
Almost forgot - the Happy Valentines Day sentiment on the tag is from the Happy Day set from PTI. Also the pink heart was cut from the PTI Limitless Layers: Hearts dies

Okay now that banner. I stamped the banner on the wee little bag. Then I took the sentiment that goes inside it - bent it in the opposite direction - and placed it on my acrylic block. Sometimes you just need to work with what you have to make it work (I guess the banner was designed to work one way - but I wanted to use it another way)
Once that banner with sentiment was on that bag-  I wanted it to stand out - pop it up a little from the background (and I didn't want to do anymore diecutting). So I took a Copic Marker W1 - and colored all around the bottom section of the bag to get the effect I wanted. I think you can see in the picture that the banner looks much lighter than the surrounding bag.
Finally I used a lot of bakery twine (i have a huge roll - like the kind they use in the bakery). Tied the little heart tag to the larger kraft tag and put that large tag in the bag and I was done.
So that wraps up the Rakarama this year. As much as I loved every minute this may be the last. (well maybe til December of next year when I start to get vision of Valentines dancing in my head instead of sugarplums). Thanks for stopping by...and Happy Valentine's Day!
ETA: when I went to link up my card earlier today to the Step it Up Challenge at Wplus9 I wasn't able to - I was so disappointed. Now I just found out the deadline has been extended! YAY!