Wishing you Love

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It's a valentine card today. It's true, just around the corner it will be the big month of everything sweet and red and romantic. It always sneaks up on me and most particularly when my kids have valentine day at their schools. So yes, I have a valentine card collection starting with this one. LOL

This card has a digital stamp from DigiStamp Boutique called Valentine Zoe... too cute, don't you think so? Joining Valentine Zoe in the Valentine Cutey Characters set are Henry, Marvin and Matilda, which is one of the two Offer of the Month treats at DigiStamp Boutique. Here's the linky if your itching to get them on the spot.

I had some fun creating several home made embellishments for this card. I was in the mood to craft and stay in denial about Mount Laundry, Menu Planning and house cleaning for the holidays that were planned. I was in my craft room all day! Well my two sweet children were crafting beside me. They started at 6:30 this morning in fact. LOL

First, I collaged some pattern paper with two Stampin' Up retired background stamps (a distressed scratched BG stamp and Checkerboard BG). Once I pulled the image, ribbon and paper together I used the rolled flower technique with some red cardstock for miniature flowers, but instead of a spiral line I did a scalloped spiral line. I didn't come up with this idea and it might be out there somewhere as a tutorial, but I did see it as a die from a Member Company at Splitcoaststampers. I was curious how that idea would work so I drew a 1 1/2 inch scalloped spiral on the cardstock and cut it out. Pinched the beginning with some pointy tweezers and started to roll it tightly around the tweezers to weaken the paper fibers. Then I let go a bit so it would loosen the spiral and open up the flower. I used Quick Drying Tacky glue and held it in place until it stayed. I curled the petals with the tweezers then squirted some red Stickles glue in the middle.

I also made up some tickets. Here's the quick steps to make your own ticket strips. Cut a thin strip of paper 1/2 inch taller than the stamp you want to use on the ticket. Use a rotary perforating blade in your hand rotary cutter or if you have a slider trimmer that can use the perforating blade. Make perforations 1/2 inch longer than the stamp image. At each intersecting perforation and edge of the paper punch a half circle with a standard hole punch. Voila!

Details:
Size: 5 1/2-inch square
Stamps: Valentine Zoe, For a Friend, Checkerboard BG, Weathered BG (?)
Paper: Neenah Solar White, Real Red, Petal Press Textured Brown Paper, Kraft (cardstock and text copy for ticket)
Ink: LaserJet, Prismacolor Markers (image) and Pencils (ticket), Basic Black, Creamy Caramel, VersaMagic Red
Accessories: 1 3/8 - inch circle punch, perforating rotary blade, blue grosgrain ribbon, Quick Dry Tacky glue, Red Stickles, MFT big scalloped die

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