VALENTINE CARD #2

This card is a step card with three "mountains" and two "valleys" between. I found it difficult to get a good picture of this. The front face of the first "mountain" has pink matting and a strip of scalloped DSP I found at Archivers. I had a bag of shiny red buttons and tied the three largest with pink crochet thread which was a little soft and difficult to keep tied. I of course did NOT have a heart button in that bag and I wanted one. So I just punched one from shiny paper and it can be seen clearly in this picture.

The second mountain has the same pink matting and scalloped punched DSP. I stamped "Happy Valentines's Day" in red on white and cut out using my CB and embossed the framed edge. Then I mounted a red CS scalloped oval behind, which was also cut out with the CB and a scalloped die. This piece is popped up.

The third "mountain" face also has pink matting. My piece of DSP was a little short, so I added a punched scalloped Martha Stewart border in white, but it doesn't show much. I then added a cut out heart in white behind the red doily to give it support. I cut the image out using the CB using the oval nestie. I popped the hedgie up on pop dots on the heart doily and flat adhered the whole thing on the left side. I stamped the little stamp "XOXO Hugs & Kisses" and used a small tag punch to punch each part out. I matted each with red CS and added a pink bow made with the crochet thread.

This is on it's way to our daughter who is so special to us. Happy Valentines Day, Beth!

This qualifies for these challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown-"buttons"
Monday Flourishes- "buttons"
Monday Crafty Card Makers- "hearts"

HAPPY vALENTINES DAY TO ALL

LOVE (or the material manifestation of it) is everywhere. All the stores have heart balloons, candy, heart decorated paper plates, napkins and cups, stuffed animals with hearts on them, coffee mugs with hearts, cling decorations for the windows depicting hearts of all kinds, and that is only at the grocery store. At other stores you get the same push for buying something with hearts.

Why does Valentine's Day need to be only one day in the year? Aren't we supposed to love others and do nice things all year long? This question has been on my mind and probably will be there a long time. I know what my Bible says about LOVE.

GOD is LOVE and HE never changes, never lies, and keeps HIS promises.

JESUS loved us (His creation) so much that HE willingly sacrificed HIS holiness, His kingship, and gave HIMSELF to die for our sins that we might be forgiven. HE wanted to please GOD and so came to earth as a man, went through a horrible death, the grave, and rose again. Such a love was for all who would believe in HIM.

We don't talk much about sacrificial love in our society. It is mostly about what can we get from someone, and NOT what can we give for the benefit of others.

Something to think about on this day of celebrating LOVE!

Here is a card I made several weeks go using the Penny Black hedgie with hearts stuck on his fur. I have made about four cards using that image. He is so cute! The red mesh is a metallic ribbon I bought after Christmas. It is full of wires and so I had to just stick it down with double stick tape. I could feel the tape through the mesh, so threw some diamond dust glitter on it to cover. (Necessity IS afterall, the mother of invention!) I ran the red yarn with silver threads over the mesh three times and secured it by tying a bow on the front. On the inside, where it criss-crosses, I punched a tissue heart and a solid CS one and adhered those over that point. I cut the hedgie out using the deckle edged rectangular Nestie, and matted with red solid CS. I stamped the sentiment, punched it out using the Stampin Up slot punch and mounted with red. I gave the hearts in his fur a coating of Glossy Accents. I think it turned out pretty cute and I have more of this same image to use. (maybe next year!) I hope to make them all totally different...we shall see.

I am sure this would fit a couple of challenges, but it is late in the day, so I won't hunt for them right now. I plan to make my hubby a nice grilled NY strip steak dinner for his Valentine dinner.

Thanks for stopping by.

LUCI CAT

At night I begin my sleep in bed with Bill, but somewhere about midnight -2am, I get up to go to the bathroom and since he is snoring pretty good, go sleep in the craft room on the day bed. I use my walker at night for stability in walking and as I go by the main bathroom I turn the light on and close the door almost shut and use that as a night light. When I went into that bathroom sometime later in the wee hours, here sits Luci in the sink. With the bathroom light on and the door almost shut, it gets very warm in there and I think the sink picks up that warmth. She is the one who likes to lie on the back of the couch under the pole lamp, kind of like taking a sun bath with a heat lamp. So I guess she is just keeping warm up here in these frigid temps. It was -20 degrees wind chill a couple of nights. I am so thankful for our warm houses and so is Luci.
Thanks for stopping by.

BELATED BIRTHDAY CARD

This last week was my son's 37th BD and I completely forgot the date. Grrr! Lately I have to look at my cell phone to see the date. When you don't have any reason to keep track of the date, it kind of gets lost. Plus I am more concerned with my walking skills right now and so am not thinking about other things much.

I made my son a quick belated card the day after. His oldest (Emma, who is almost 6 yrs old) picked out this House Mouse image because they were having fun in the snow. I matted it with some blue solid CS and some birthday paper behind the image and heat embossed some snowflakes all over the image to make it look like snow falling. I ran Scotch tape around a Q-tip to make it as small a circle as I could, then dipped it into the Versa Mark and made the dots. I used white embossing powder and heat set it. Some of the dots were made prior to coloring, and some after. But they all look the same! : ) I colored with a mixture of Copics and Stampin Up markers. I gave it to Bill when he and the girls came for dinner. Happy Birthday Som!

MY MOTHER"S VALENTINE

This little girl on this Penny Black image reminds me of a picture of my mother when she was 5 or so. She had a little Dutch boy hair cut with bangs and her angelic face looked just like this stamp. She was standing by the roadster that her mom and grand mother had driven down to Mexico for a road trip back in the 20's. It is a cool picture, and if I can get a copy, I will post it.

Mom likes blue and pink a lot so I tend to gravitate to making her cards with blue or pink as the main color. I began with a black and then blue matting, adding a white lace layer and the light blue paper both punched using a Martha Stewart punch (Vintage Lace) I stamped the inside of the card and then adhered the ribbon on the front and back and tied the whole card shut. It will give her something new to do...untie her Valentine card!

I colored the image using my few Copics and some Stampin Up markers, and added the magenta Stickles for some glitz. I popped the image and sentiment up with pop dots. The sentiment is stamped in pink, and punched with a Stampin Up slot punch, and then matted with blue. I added a pink pearl heart to her hat, which is the only heart on this Valentine card. But I think she will be pleased with it. We mailed it with a small box of chocolate candies, and a cat comb for her cat. We comb our 3 cats to keep their fur smooth and they have less shedding. Mom expressed a desire to try a comb like ours and so she shall. She likes little gifts and I try to surprise her from time to time.
Thanks for stopping by.

SIMPLE

Here is a card I have thought about making for a long time. It requires that you stamp it 3-4 or more times, depending on the layering you plan to do. I stamped it 6 times and then set it aside months ago and didn't do anything with it until now.

It is a large Holly Berry House (has nothing to do with the movie stare Haley Berry) medallion stamp which I have lots of different ones ( an Ebay collection of mine) LOL! I decided to color this medallion with shades of pink and combined my few Copics with my Stampin Markers to get enough shades. I colored the bottom layer completely first so I would know where I was going with it, and then each layer above just got that layer colored. The cutting took the longest and deciding where to cut. I popped the three layers up. I was surprised that there is a "right" placement to the layers where the lines line up correctly.

I cut a plain white piece of CS with my CB and ran it through the Swiss dots folder and adhered it flat behind the medallion.It only shows near the bottom under the medallion (rotten camera skills here!) I stamped "be mine" (from Amuse) in pink and added some very small magenta heart rhinestones to the medallion and one beside the saying. I am liking simple more and more, every time I am able to accomplish it. I think it really requires a different skill set. Anyone can clutter up the card inside and out with bunches and bunches of layers, embellies, etc, but to make a simple card that seems to linger in the mind and make you smile at its simplicity is an artistic accomplishment, IMO! Don't get me wrong...cluttered cards can be pretty too, they are just different from the simple ones.

The opinions expressed here are mine alone and it is my blog where I share what I am thinking about and what I am thinking. I don't expect everyone or anyone to agree with me. It is JUST MY OPINION! Thanks for stopping by.

A FAVORITE

This card is made using one of my very favorite kinds of stamps...a swirling flourish, which I embossed in white and then colored in two shades of pink. I covered the elongated card with a soft diagonal striped paper and then matted the flourish with two shades of pink. I stamped "love" in a pink after popping up the flourish. It doesn't need ribbon or any extras. LESS is MORE!

I believe my card qualifies for the SimonSaysStamp challenge "Love is in the air" and the the SimonSaysStamp and Show challenge "emboss".