Valentine's Day Cards

Valentine's Day is almost here and I've finally made some cards! I've been thinking sweet.....simple.....conversation hearts. Then the ideas started flowing. My momentarily clean craft table is now a wonderfully jumbled mess of pastel hearts, Valentine stamps, and we can't forget pink and red ink and paper :)

I got my first copy of Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine and just had to try out one of the free stamps I got. Isn't he adorable?

For the background I used the conversation hearts stamps from Repeat Impressions. I bought the unmounted set at the stamp show last summer. You can see the set and some other cards that I made in this post.

I used distress markers with a paintbrush and water, in place of watercolors, to color the image. I inked all the edges in black. A little pink ribbon and a heart punch tied on, and this one's ready for sending :)

I used a small heart punch and hand wrote the words on the hearts in colored pencil. I covered three more with foil paper. I really like the crinkly look of those. I formed the hearts into a heart shape and hand cut the green and yellow hearts to frame them.

For the background I again used the conversation hearts from Repeat Impressions and inked up all the edges with a purple ink.

The card looked a little washed out after my distressing, so I added some detail with a cosmic Jelly Roll pen. Just a little sparkle did the trick! The first photo above shows the sparkly ink on the card up close.

I have a hard time with masculine cards. I just want to add glitter and ribbons to everything! I restrained myself....sort of.

I colored the truck, from Rubber Cottage Stamps, with alcohol markers, and then went heart stamping CRAZY. I used an assortment of small heart stamps, initially coming from the bed of the truck, and it turned into a background :) I used a kraft paper card, offsetting the main image with a red border, black grosgrain ribbon, and a few more red hearts with some of the same stamps from the background.  The sentiment is on a heart punch that's popped up a little with foam tape.

It's kind of masculine, right? It's got a truck and there's no glitter. Believe me, no sparkle was hard!

I'm a sucker for the old standbys, chocolate and flowers, and my guys always deliver :) What's your favorite Valentine treat? Any big plans for Valentine's Day?  Are you treating yourself, someone else, or both?

 Have a Happy Valentine's Day, however you spend it!!

Thanks for stopping by,