A Fun Fold Valentine – For Island Hopping!

Aloha, all!

And welcome to the first session of Island Hopping for 2021! My friend, Cheryl Hamilton, and I decided that this would be a perfect time to show off a Valentine card with a fun fold. So we’ll hop from where I live on Hawai’i’s Big Island over to our neighbor, the Island of Maui, where Cheryl lives showing off Fun Fold Valentines!

This is a New Fold For Me

The fold that you see in the picture at the top of this article is called a Vertical Easel Card. I stumbled across a tutorial for it while I was looking for something else a few days ago. I bookmarked it not quite knowing what I was going to do with it. But when Cheryl and I decided on our theme for January, I was glad I’d bookmarked it. Because here it is! I may write my own tutorial in the future as I did make a few modifications. But the tutorial I used is a great start.

Traditional Valentine Colors?

For the most part, I like to use bright red and pinks for Valentine’s cards. But I also wanted to use some of the beautiful new Love You Always Specialty Designer Series Paper for the printed paper layer on the front of this card.

My color choices (the colors in the paper set) were Blushing Bride, Rococo Rose, and Sahara Sand. OK, the Blushing Bride sheet, which included Copper Foil accents got me to the “pink” part of my color preferences. But I had the worst time trying to match it with either of the bright reds (Real Red or Poppy Parade) in the Stampin’ Up! collection. None of the other, darker, pinks worked either (for me at least). So I went in the other direction – dark but not bright.

I think that Cherry Cobbler turned out to be a really good choice. The photo just above shows the closed card. I just love how the large, scalloped heart, cut with a die from the Many Hearts Die set, and the card base made with Cherry Cobbler Cardstock provide a sharp contrast to the muted Blushing Bride and Copper patterned paper.

Not Just a Fun Fold – A Fun Shape!

Earlier this month I participated in a challenge to make a square card. To make a square card that would fit into one of my stash of A2-sized envelopes, the card would have had to be 4″ square. That just felt too small for what I like to do with a card. So I made my card 5″ square, which was just right – and ordered some A7-sized (5-1/4″ x 7-1/4″) envelopes for my stash. They arrived last Saturday, just in time for this card.

Here’s how I decorated the envelop for this project. I’ve been much better at decorating envelops WHEN I make a card.

An Aside About Envelopes

The United States Postal Service has a couple of requirements that come into play when it comes to the shape of an envelope. The one that affects square cards is that, if you use a square envelope, you have to pay extra postage. Now doing this every once in a while isn’t that expensive. In fact, I have quite a few stamps for “Non-Machinable” envelopes (which is what square is). But, when a card will fit inside a rectangular envelope, why not use something that will cost less to mail? So 5″ square card = A7 envelope.

All Those Hearts!

All of the hearts in the card’s center element are die-cut using the Many Hearts Dies. They all layer so beautifully. What’s even better is that there’s a set of sentiments in an older – but still current – Valentine-themed stamp set – Heartfelt. What’s not to like about an old-fashioned “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue…” poem! It fits perfectly in the smaller heart in the die set. I added some Champagne Rhinestones to fill out the heart a bit.

To continue on with the poem, I added another of the smaller die-cut hearts to the inside of the card. Besides completing the poem, it serves as the “stopper” for the card front when it’s slightly folded open for display. Even thought it didn’t really need it, I added a rhinestone to this heart, too.

Speaking of hearts – do you see that strip of hearts down the right edge of the Blushing Bride cardstock layer inside the card? That’s a stamp from the Lots of Heart Stamp Set. I bought the stamp set to show off some of the other images in the set and just gave the heart strip a passing glance. Hah! Now I know where it really works! You’ll be seeing it again for sure.

The Bottom Line

Making Valentine’s Day Cards is always lots of fun. But it’s even more fun when you have some beautifully coordinating Stamp Set/Cutting Tool combinations. The Heartfelt Stamp Set/Heart Punch Pack Bundle and the Lots of Heart Stamp Set/Many Hearts Bundle are totally winning combinations for Valentine’s Day Cards. If you buy a bundle, you save 10%. I put a link to the bundles in the slide show of products at the end of this post.

And finally be sure to visit Cheryl Hamilton’s blog post for today. She does amazing folds and I can hardly wait to see what she’s done for this hop!