More and More Hearts with Forever Lovely

Happy Friday Stampers!
I want to share the rest of my Valentine ideas that I've designed so far, as I've had fun playing with the two bundles in the 2019 Occasions Catalog.  It was a little hard for me to decide which is my favorite, so I purchased both! This second bundle is called "Forever Lovely" and while it has a few hearts, it mostly focuses on a flower motif with some really interesting framelits to accompany the stamp set.  This is one of those sets that you have to play with a little to really appreciate.  Here are some of my ideas:

 Isn't this gorgeous?!  I tried to incorporate a little bit of everything in this card!  The two-step stamping was easy with the Stamparatus to help me position my stamps. I wanted the flowers and lives to be vivid so I used Lovely Lipstick and Granny Apple Green for my colors.  To give the card some texture, I used the new "Lace Dynamic Texture Embossing" folder. This lovely embossing folder looks great on either side, embossed or de-bossed.  i wanted some sheen and shine so added a thin strip of the Lovely Lipstick foil paper available as a Sale-A-Bration freebie with a $50 order.  I used my sprig punch to add some extra greenery and finally some gold pearls for bling.

My second card is just about the exact opposite in terms of detail!  It's simple stamping with a tad of Designer Series Paper thrown in!  It always have to remind myself that a card doesn't have to be "over the top" to be effective.

I wanted to play with some of the other framelits, so I used this smaller rose and leaf die in the corners of my cardstock piece. It cuts out the rose and leaves and the cut out outline is what remains. I added some silver glimmer paper to highlight it. If you look closely, you'll see where I stamped a rose with Flirty Flamingo ink on the card stock as well, just to create some texture and depth. I even added a little bit of our rose metallic thread!

The other thing I've enjoyed over the past couple of weeks is pulling out some old favorite Valentine stamp sets and combining them with some new product, because they were the perfect fit. As soon as I saw the "Buffalo Plaid" background stamp, I remember the lumber jack stamp from a few years ago!  I love this set and card!!

One customer reminded me of her favorite Valentine that I had made in the past, from the "I Dig You" set!  I updated it here by combining Real Red with our new Gray Granite.  Believe it or not, I colored in the red dots with my Real Red Stampin'Write marker!

And of course, there are those cute hedgehogs that pop up every now and then!  This time I was able to color them with my Stampin' Blends alcohol markers. My son no longer has his hedgehog, but it still makes me smile to think of Miko and hedgehogs in general!

I think I like making Valentine cards so much because of the whimsy and humor that can be included. It's fun to feed off the inside jokes and shared funny experiences we have with people and translate that to paper and ink for the perfect Valentine card!

I hope you have a fun weekend planned!  I have another Stampin'Up! party scheduled this weekend with all new people and I'm so excited to share what I love.

Until next time,
Sarah