What Fun I Had Making Valentine Cards This Year!
Did you happen to see the article I posted yesterday? If not you might want to check it out before you read this quick article. Because I wouldn’t have made these cards if I hadn’t made those cards!
Making Use of Leftovers
Leftovers aren’t just for the dinner table. They work great the Craft Room, too. Most of the hearts that I used for my full-sized Valentine Cards this year came from the cards that I made yesterday. I had a whole pile of hearts and hearts should never go to waste.
OK. I’ll show you something from yesterday and you’ll see just where these hearts came from!
The hearts in today’s card came from the papers used in these cards. I used the heart cut from the design shown on the left card and the design on the other side of the heart cut from the card on the right. Most of the background papers in my 30 cards used the design shown on the left and right card. As I’d used this paper for another project, I didn’t have quite enough to use for all the cards. So I used the Blushing Bride color that you see in the center card for some extra hearts.
Knowing Where to Punch
There’s another part of using leftovers that even surprised me when I tried it out. You see the print on the paper with the little conversation hearts on it has other designs in it. Those include some large pieces of candy that really didn’t seem to work well with the punched hearts as frequently just a part of those candy pieces would show up. But I found if I turned my heart punch just right I could get mostly little hearts to punch. And where did I find the left over paper for this operation? In my waste basket.
I was amazed at how I could manipulate that heart punch! If you look closely at the bottom heart in the picture at the beginning of this article, you can see a small piece of the large candies in the lower right section of the heart. That punched piece came from the waste basket and I think it looks just fine.
What’s That Purple?
I’m generally old-fashioned when it comes to Valentine’s Day colors. I like reds and pinks. But this year Stampin’ Up! included some other colors, primarily purple. This purple is Stampin’ Up!’s Highland Heather. To complement the colors in the Sweet Talk Designer Series Paper set, I punched the scalloped hearts out of Highland Heather Cardstock and stamped the sentiment using Highland Heather ink.
Putting the Card Together
This card has a simple design. But it came about as I was figuring out what to do with all those hearts I had on my work table. I wanted to use as many as possible on the larger cards, with the goal of having 10 of these new cards. That meant I needed to place 3 on each larger card. To make it a standard A2 size to fit in the envelopes in my stash, those hearts had to overlap. So I adhered the colorful hearts top and bottom, with the plain Blushing Bride hearts in the middle. To make them stand out from the strip of Blushing Bride paper that I’d chosen for the center of the card, I used the other heart from the Heart Punch Pack and created a Highland Heather scalloped heart for a mat.
When it came to the inside of the card, I definitely wanted something there. But as I’d already said “Happy Valentine’s Day” on the front, I didn’t want to repeat that. So I just stamped the little horizontal row of hearts from the Sweet Conversations Stamp Set. That set a nice location for me to write a short note and sign the card.
You might remember that I used the Iridescent Rhinestone Basic Jewels for the little Valentine Cards. I chose not to use them for the larger cards as I’m not completely thrilled with how they frequently poke through the paper on envelopes. If I’m just sending one special card, I’ll include an extra piece of paper to lay over the front of the card when mailing. But I was in a rush when I was making and sending these cards, so that wasn’t an option. But those jewels are definitely gorgeous!
This Paper’s Not Just For Valentine Cards!
And, yes, that Highland Heather striped paper is from the same paper set as the other papers. That’s one thing I love about Stampin’ Up!’s papers. Even if the paper is seasonal, there are still designs that you can use any time for many different occasions. Both of the background papers on this card have that feature. Don’t forget that when you still see this paper set still available around Mother’s Day!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
