Valentine's Day Banner

From Valentine's Day Banner

Since my Cricut has a permanent home now, I decided to use it to make a Valentine's Day banner! It was a quick, fun project using 3 of my cartridges. Sort of plain and simple, but I like it!

A belated valentine...

Before the month of February ends, I ought to at least show you what I did for Valentines this year!

I made some heart chocolates (some peanut butter filled, some toffee crunch filled) and some chocolate covered pretzels (pink and white, of course) sprinkled with coarse sugar and tied them up with cute pink and brown polka dotted bows. I love this ribbon! It was clearance ribbon from Martha Stewart Christmas stuff at Kmart, but I thought it was PERFECT for Valentine's Day. Isn't it?? I love it!

Here's a closer look at the Valentine goodies....

Vintage Valentines

Remember these vintage beauties??


Well, they're now for sale at a local scrapbook shop near you!

Well, okay, a local scrapbook shop near you IF you happen to live in Bozeman, MT. ;D

Yes, I now have items (finished items, not kits) available for sale at Keepsakes By Design in Bozeman. There are a few things, from a premade vintage 8x8 album to cards (including these!) to mini albums...

So if you're interested, you know where to get them. =D

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Here's a little card I made a while back and I thought today was a fitting day to share it! I've been trying to use up my rub-on stash, since they tend to go "bad" after too long on the shelf! So here's a little ditty using some Hambly paper, Hambly rub-ons (because the paper is shimmery it's hard to see the detail in the upper corner, but the silver flourishes go all the way around and there's a rub on in the upper corner, too!), Heidi Swapp ghost hearts, and flowers and glittery letters from the Target $pot. It's one of those cards that looks 100% better in person, but is hard to photograph. So just use your imagination and know that it really IS a super shimmery, sparkly card! Now... if only I knew someone who was getting married! This would be perfect for a wedding...

From That to This...

I have a Target $pot addiction. I admit it. Especially when it comes to their scrapbooking supplies. So a while back I got some Prima-style paper flowers there for $1. You can't beat that! When I put the flowers away, though, I was left with this container that they came in:

Now, I couldn't just throw it away... I was sure it could be used for something!! I didn't have a lid, but I kept it anyway. And then an idea struck me... with a little shrink wrap, it would be perfect for homemade chocolates! And so it went from THAT to THIS:




And with my recent penchant for Valentine's things, I added a little I Love You and gave it to my sweet love.


Of course, after I made one I realized I had another two (I told you I had an addiction!) containers sitting in my "find a way to alter" pile (Oh, there are LOTS of things in that pile!) and thought that they'd make a nice looking wedding cake if stacked on top of one another. So this idea is for future reference, if I ever throw a wedding shower again. Wouldn't it make a cute centerpiece?

Valentine's Mail Box!!

This is the mailbox I was working on making the other day. I used a half sheet of the same Loveland paper that I used on the Mom and Me Valentines. Even though the mailbox won't be part of the class, I thought it would be fun to display them together at the open house and in the store. I like the combination so much, in fact, that I went and bought a few more mailboxes at the Target $pot so I can make some for Etsy! The mailbox itself is pink and the front detaches. To the Loveland paper I added some lace, flowers, rhinestones, and stamping to finish off the design.





I saw everyone making these little mailboxes last year and I thought they were cute, but couldn't for the life of me figure out what you would do with one. I've never been one to get all excited about Valentine's Day, so it just didn't make sense to me. But this year I seem to be in the "Valentine's spirit" and making all sorts of Valentine's projects! I don't know what's up with that, but it did get me started on this project, so I guess it's a good thing, right? This is my first attempt at altering a mailbox and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It reinforced in my mind a love for two things: 1. My Xyron. It made this project SOOOO much easier. 2. Scenic Route scrap strip paper. That stuff is amazing. I love it. Makes me glad I stocked up on some of it a while back. Now I'll have to add this to my collection, too. =D

Trying Something New

For the next set of Keepsakes classes I'm trying something new. Maybe it's that Ellie's getting old enough that I want to do projects with her. Maybe it's that I miss teaching kids and was reminded of that during my recent substitute teaching stint. Whatever the cause, I decided that it would be fun if there were scrapbooking classes at Keepsakes for moms to do with their kids. So I proposed one and got it accepted for this quarter's schedule!

The class will run for a couple hours and during that time each mom/kid pair will make 10 valentines - two each of the five designs above. They'll learn some simple techniques like paper tearing, decorative scissors, inking, and line drawing, and hopefully have a lot of fun along the way! Thanks to Scenic Route's Loveland collection, it's easy to get five totally different designs (and 10 cards) from a single sheet of their scrap strip paper. I love these for card making!!

Okay... I'm off to alter a little mailbox in which to display the valentines at the open house next weekend! Ta ta!

Vintage Valentines

A while back Andrea sent me these vintage style playing cards. Ever since, I have been trying to figure out what on earth to do with them. They'd be perfect for altering, but, well... I'm not much of an alter-er. So last night (in my CLEAN craftroom) I pulled them out and saw that there were four of them... perfect for a set of Valentines! I got out some lace from Freecycle (got this box a couple months back and hadn't really done anything with it... until now!) and some stamps, some $pot flowers and buttons. I like how these turned out! I don't really hand out valentines, so I'll probably put them up on Etsy. We'll see. In any event, it was a fun foray into the vintage world. I'm sure I'll be back for a visit.