Cards for Men Challenge 3- Valentines and love...

I know lots of people find making cards for men tricky and Valentines can be particularly hard. I know my husband would not list pink among his favourite colours! Hope you find some inspiration among the DT cards over at Cards for Men and have a go at our Valentines and Love challenge which runs until 13th February. Here's my offering...

This is for my husband but I think I should be safe posting it as he doesn't usually look at my blog unless I have computer trouble! We are sponsored by Prairie Fairy and this is one of their images- he is so cute! His nose and the heart were just crying out to be glazed with glossy accents, so who was I to argue! I have kept the rest of the design quite simple with positive and negative swirl papers from Pink Petticoat, red and black mats, pearlised black card candy and hearts cut with a Sizzlett die. The black heart is cut from Core'dinations Black Magic, embossed then sanded back to show the red core.

Prairie Fairy are offering 5 digi stamps for our lucky winner. The have lots of beautiful images so do pop over to the store for a look. See the Cards for Men site for more info about our sponsor, the rest of the DT cards and to enter the challenge.


I would also like to enter this card for:

• Craft you days away- love
• Charisma cardz- Valentines and love
• Paper Play- layer it up (The image is on two mats and I have used the positive and negative DP)
• Daring Cardmakers- Year of the rabbit
• Prairie Fairy Fridays- for a sweetheart

A Valentine for my son...

I always got a valentine as a child which I knew was from my Dad but it was lovely to be included, so now I  give Matthew a valentine too. He is 9 now so I was looking for something quite 'cool'! The image is Deacon Heart from Bugaboo and it was just what I was after. (They have Deacon Swing as a freebie this week.) I was struggling to find papers until Summer Driggs released her new freebie 'Dance with Me' earlier this week and I think they are perfect. The hearts are die cut with a Sizzlett die that has seen loads of action lately, lol. The brad is silver which goes well with the greys in real life but it has reflected something in this photo so looks a bit gold, which would be all wrong!

I would like to enter this card for the following challenges:

• A Spoon Full of Sugar- Valentine
• The Sisterhood of Crafters- Anything goes
• Charisma Cardz- Valentines/love
• Do you stack up?- patterned paper (4 different papers used for this card)
• Totally Papercrafts- one for the kiddies (this is for my son)

Two Valentines for the men in my life...

...don't get excited! I mean my husband and my son!

This cheeky little number is for my husband. I thought I might be pushing it with the image AND the sentiment but it made him laugh when he opened it this morning! You see he is rather 'cuddly' and this Murray and Ethel image reminded me of him- in the nicest possible way! I love that Murray and Ethel sentiment too. We have always said "Do you love me?" and replied "I'm still here, aren't I!" so you get the picture of what we are like! The papers are a free (for personal use) download from Shabby Princess.This is for my son so it had to be boyish rather than the traditional Valentines colours. I found the right papers in a recent download which was a free collaboration called Dr Love from Collies Corner and Sweet Digi Scraps. 'Billy' images from Pink Cat Studio are perfect for him right now and this set has mini stamps for the center of the heart- I chose 'Hug me' because I love hugs from him and dread the day when he decides he is too big for them!

Not surprisingly, quite a few of the challenges have Valentines as their theme this week so I am entering these cards for My Time to Craft, Cute Card Thursday and Dutch Dare. Charisma Cardz has 'male' as their theme so I am also entering them both for this.

With Love...

I am mortified to see how long it is since I last put a post on here! December got mad busy at school because Year Two take the lead in the KS1 performance. It snowed on the last day of term and we don't seem to have really got rid of it properly since! You'd think that would have given me loads of crafting time but it put a real 'spanner in the works' in lots of ways, too numerous and boring to go into here. I love looking at snow through the window of a cosy house when I do not have anything that I have to do, but I am a real snow-wuss when it comes to driving on it or on ice. Like many of you, I'm sure, I am so glad that it is starting to go!

I have, however, found out that I am going to be working full time until at least Easter- I love my class and the extra money certainly comes in handy, but I cannot wait to get back to part-time and even my husband is realizing the advantages of me being part-time!
Anyway, enough of that and on to my card! Cute Card Thursday have 'pink and grey' as their colour combo this week so I printed off these Pink Petticoat papers to get me going. They have been on the side for a couple of days but I was determined to use them! I based my card on the sketch at Sketch Saturday and am quite pleased with how it came out, considering how rusty I am feeling! I just wish I had used the oval for the greeting the other way round or used a circle instead- it looks too tall like this. Oh well- never mind, it will have to stay like this now!

The final Valentine for this year!

I made this bright Valentine after finding these free download papers at Papercraft Inspirations. They were the perfect opportunity to use my new Elzybell stamp and I based my colouring on them.

Right, that's enough of the Valentines for one year! Now that I seem to have sorted out the basics of blogging I can't wait to get down to making some cards again so hopefully I will have something new to share soon!

Elzybells Valentine

I'm not particularly pleased with this card (especially as the message is a bit squiffy!) but I was pleased with my colouring of the image. I used watercolour pencils and a paintbrush.

A special card

My friend asked me to make a Valentines card for her to give her husband. He is blind so the most important aspect of the card was that it was tactile. I used a nice heavyweight pearl card for both the base card and the embossing. I was thrilled when I found the grosgrain ribbon with swirls on in my stash because it tied in so well with the embossing while adding a nice texture. To add interest the ribbon panel is secured down and the card opens from the score after that. More of my felt flowers in burgundy and dark brown secured with a brad and an interestingly shaped message cut and embossed with my nesties and popped up on 3D foam. I hope it fits the bill with the textures as well as looking good- she seemed really pleased with it when I gave it to her.

Hello!

Well, after a couple of weeks of working out how to get a good photo of my cards and how to edit them I am finally ready to start posting! Because of this I have not made any new cards lately so my first post is of some Valentines I made before I started all this!



I used the new Lily and Billy Sweethearts set and the papers are a free download from Papercraft Inspirations. I am very into my felt flowers at the moment which I make with my Sizzix and some felt from the market!