Valentine's Day

I Love Valentine's Day, don't you?

I'm a romantic at heart but it's not just the wonderful message of love that intrigues me. It's also all the beautiful things that I love and what they represent: flowers, ribbons and bows, lace, vintage Victorian images, chocolate, hearts and cupids - just to name a few.




With this in mind, I decided to share my love and passion for designing greeting cards with you. Today I'll demonstrate how to make a beautiful Valentine card (Photo above) out of some of my favorite elements of this lovely occasion. As a bonus for visiting me today and reading this post, you'll have the chance to win the kit to make this card. How about that…!? All you have to do is to leave a comment at the end of this post with your e-mail address.

To begin you'll need a 72 lb. watercolor paper trimmed to 7" x 5.5". You can also use a white card stock. Fold the paper in half and burnish the fold. Cut a strip of the sculpted edge from a white paper doily that's wider than your card, about 4". Glue it above the bottom edge of the card. Leave the ends hanging over the edges of the card. (Use any white craft glue for this project.) Tear a strip of decorative paper (I used Anna Griffin paper) and glue it over-lapping the doily a little; leaving the ends hanging outside the edges of the card. Continue layering the card by alternating with doily's strips and decorative paper until you reach the top of the card.

Hot Tip: Use a junk mail catalog as a 'glue book' as I like to call it. It's a wonderful way to spread glue on small pieces of paper without a sticky mess. Every time you spread glue on a new piece of paper, flip the page to a new spread so you always work on a clean surface.

Trim all sides of the card with scissors where paper overhangs the edges.

Cut a strip of sculpted edge from a cream-colored doily that's a little longer than the height of the card (about 6"). Match and glue the straight edge of the doily to the left edge of the card. Trim the top and bottom edges with scissors.

Next it's time to cut the Valentine images that will embellish the card. My images came from my Valentine collage sheet collection. The saying came also from the collage sheet but I glued it to a larger cream-colored card stock to frame it. I cut the flower image from an Anna Griffin paper.

Glue the flower to the right corner of the card.

Glue the heart at an angle overlapping the flower a little. (See above photo.)

Before you add the framed saying, spread a little glue around the edges and sprinkle it with red glitter. (I used Art glitter.) Now you are ready to glue and position it between the heart and flower by under and over-lapping it. (See above photo.)

Glue the Valentine clown so it overlaps the heart on the lower right side of the card.

We are almost done! All you have left to do is antique all the edges of the card with ink from a red stamp pad (I used Distress Ink.), cut a piece of velum (3.25" x 5.5") and glue it to the inside of the right side of the card where you will write your own special greetings. Note: the velum is cut narrower than the width of the card to give it a layered look. You can cut the right edge of the velum with a sculpted edge scissors, if you like. All done!

As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, you have a chance to win this lovely kit, which has more than enough material for a couple of cards.

Kit includes:
One sheet of watercolor paper,

one E. Designs Valentine Collage sheet ,

two paper doilies,

two Anna Griffin 12 x 12 papers,

one sheet of cream colored card-stock,

one sheet of velum and a couple of envelopes.

I hope you found this post inspirational and fun, and I thank you for stopping by. Please don't forget to leave a comment and your e-mail address. I will draw and post the name of the winner on Saturday, February 7th, so please check back to see if you are the lucky one.

I wish you happy creating with love,