Valentines 2010

What a wonderful day! Homemade pancakes, flowers from {3} of my most favorite men in the world and a day filled with quality one on one time with my family. I couldn't ask for more than that.

Here's a few pictures of the beautiful flowers that were waiting for me when I woke up this morning. How sweet... I hate spending money on flowers, because I always seem to kill them instantly, but I'll have to admit they are so... pretty and I {LOVE} having fresh flowers in the house.

Thanks to a wonderful loving husband, I get to enjoy the beauty of fresh cut flowers from time to time. He's instilling such wonderful qualities in my boys. Love him for that and so... much more.

{Lily} - a flower we used in our wedding

{Red Rose} - also in our wedding

I love, love, love my {new} camera lense! Fun...

Happy Valentine's Day

2010

I Squirheart You

This little whale is "squirting" his love around this Valentines Day. :) In my attempt to make a non-traditional Valentines card, I decided to use this little guy with some fun designer paper and a little heart. I think it's neat to use unexpected images like this little whale for special events and/or holidays! He's super {CUTE} and he gets the point across.

For this pocket style card, I chose to use a combination of designer paper, card stock and ribbon. I stamped my {favorite} circular images on WWCS and cut them out by hand. My punches just weren't doing the job this time. Uggg... The things you have to do! :)

This is a really fun card to make and I so... wish I had the time to make more! Oh well, off to the mailbox I go!

Tilda's Delivering Valentines

Here's a {Valentines} card I designed with the oh so cute {Tilda} from Magnolia Stamps. Isn't she the cutest? Well... maybe she'd be even cuter if my lighting had been better. Ugh... :( That's what happens when you take pictures in the evening. Anywho... I just love her and she already has a home! My little man Ethan is just dying to give this card to his Kindergarten teacher. How sweet is that? He watched me make the entire card, all the while talking about how he wanted to give it to his teacher. So... looks like cute little Tilda will be delivering a Valentine to Ms. Ballentine! That rhymes! Too, too {CUTE} for words.

For this card, I started out by stamping Tilda with Stazon on SU watercolor paper. After coloring her with a combination of SU markers and Copics I cut her out, detached her heart and placed her on top of my handmade designer paper! I then reattached her heart with a piece of charcoal DMC.

I used a variety of circle punches, a scallop punch and a label punch from SU to add a little dimension to the card and the greeting. The inside of the card has been lined with a white piece of CS framed in black. I added one of Tilda's hearts to the inside bottom right corner to tie the card together.

I hope to get more Magnolia stamps soon... This Tilda is my {FIRST}! Shh... don't tell. :)

Stain Glass Crayon Hearts

Here's a really simple craft I ran across on www.marthastewart.com that you and your children can make together for Valentines Day. My children loved helping me make these cute little stain glass hearts. They were able to trim the crayons, fold the wax paper, assist with ironing, cutting them out and string em' up! What fun we had...

You can make the hearts any color or size you choose. I chose to make smaller hearts so they would fit nicely in the glass panels of our front door. If you don't have glass panels on your door, you can hang them from your windows.

Here are the supplies you'll need and a few tips I've added to the original instructions that may help you.

Supplies

• Crayons - any color
• Pencil Sharpener
• Wax Paper - 16" long
• Iron
• Ironing Board
• Paper Bags
• Old Towel
• Scissors
• Lightweight String (e.g. DMC)

Tips

1. Trim crayons, just a few to start the wax goes a long way... If you decide to make white hearts trim them {FIRST}!
2. Fold your wax paper in half and sprinkle about a tablespoon of shavings on one side of it. Close the wax paper like a book and fold the three edges over (e.g. about 1/2" in size).
3. {IMPORTANT} Place a old towel on your ironing board.
4. Place the wax paper book between two pieces of thick paper bag (e.g. Target or grocery store)
5. Place warm iron on top of paper bag and rub back and forth and up and down checking on the wax about every 5 sweeps. It melts {QUICK}!
6. Make sure you push your wax with your iron as far as you can. This will make it "thin out". You {DON'T} want thick wax in your hearts! When you can kinda see through your wax paper it's done.
7. Remove your newly colored wax paper and lay it on a {flat} surface. {Flat} is the key!
8. Trace or draw your hearts on the wax paper, cut them out, string em' and hang em'.

And... simple as that. You're done! :)

Shore Do Love... Mr. Crabby Pants

Here's a few pictures of my Mr. Crabby Valentines creation! What do you think? This is the first card I have created using my BRAND NEW Fiskars paper cutter! It was awesome! Yipee... Way better than my old Fiskars. He's got a little friend "staring" in this card debut! Any guesses? Take a peak below to see who it is!
Thanks for looking!
Jenn