So a very dear friend of mine and I were having breakfast the other day, and she asked how many valentine cards I had in stock.  Well, I’m not a big fan of V-day, since I feel you should celebrate love year round, instead of just one day a year.  I mean, my husband and I exchange cards, and we usually give sweet little cards to the kids, but that’s it.  We don’t do the dinners and gifts and declarations of LOVE.  No, we do that everyday (at least the declarations).  So I was a little taken aback when my friends asked about valentine cards.

No, she didn’t really want any hearts and flowers and etc. cards.  What she wanted was valentine cards to send people who might not have a spouse or child to share the day with.  Cards to say how much a person meant to her, and the love she feels for them.  Now, that is a kind of Valentine’s Day I can celebrate, because while I make sure to tell my husband daily how I feel about him, I don’t always tell my friends in the way I should.

So I want to challenge my (now) two readers out there to make Valentine’s this year not about there ridiculous holiday it has become, but instead a day of letting the people who matter in your life, people that you may not tell it enough to, how much they matter.

On that note, I may have a few cards today, that are celebrating love.  Brace yourself, there are quite a few.

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Up first today, is a challenge from Can You Case It.   This week we have a sketch challenge, and I am on so happy, because the brick wall in the sketch means I got to use my embossing folders (yes, I’m still addicted).

So with the great brick detail, I had to pull out the embossing

folder from Darice that had Brick Wall, them trimmed it down to about 2 inches.  So one of my goals this year is to put a series dent in my stash of paper and see if I can get rid of a bunch of it, so now I am always looking for opportunities to dig in.  In the past I have hoarded

pretty paper for fear of using it (yes, I know it doesn’t make since), but now, I’m over it.  I pulled out this beautiful rose page and trimmed it down to 4.25×5.5.  The hearts are some little add ons I’ve had forever and they matched really well with the roses, so they got added with dimensional tape.  Finally I pulled out a left over scrape from my die cutting machine from the My Favorite Things Story Titles, and realized if I attached it only at the bottom strip of paper, the letters would float.  I added the My Favorite Things sentiment and a few silver dots, and called it a day.  (Yes, this is actually hearts and flowers, but I like it anyway.  And yes this will probably end up being the card I gift my husband.)

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Next up in the all things lovey, was a challenge from The Paper Players.  They had a cool color challenge this week, with tempting turquoise, melon mambo, and real red, that was not really v-day colors, but I do love trying to make something happen from a place it shouldn’t.

I pulled out one of my favorite stamp sets of all

times, Avery Elle Geek Love.  It is just cute and funny, and frankly endearing, and since I’m just a big fat dork myself, it holds a special place in my heart.  I’m sure I’m not the only one.  Anyway, I stamped out the boy and girl and colored them in with my Spectrum Noir makers, and filled their little glasses in with Glossy Accents.  I then grabbed my Distress Inks and watercolored the back ground with peacock feathers, pink raspberry, and festive berries.  I added the sentiment and all the little hearts.  I didn’t like how the center of the hearts were showing the back ground color so I colored them in with my white paint maker and then added a Wink of Stella to them.  Geek Love, isn’t it great?

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Coming next is one of my favorite challenge groups, if for no other reason, because I get to pretend I ate the pretty little cupcake (cupcakes, btw are not on my fitness diet, much to my great sadness).  But isn’t this cupcake just beautiful.  And I adore the color challenge for this week of graphite, white, and lilac (a little more workable for of love theme today).

I pulled out a Stamp set from My Favorite Things

called Wood You Be Mine? and stamped the great wood grain heart and sentiment on a piece of card stock with Memento Lulu Lavender ink and Memento Gray Flannel.  I blended the grey flannel around the edges of the card stock.  On another piece of stock, I mushed Distress Hickory Smoke ink on the back ground and adhered the wood grain to the back ground.  Now brace yourself…I am about to mix different brands of stamps.  The card needed a little something more, so I pulled out my Hero Arts Color Layering Butterflies and stamped out the two butterflies in Memento angel pink, lulu lavender, sweet plum, and elderberry.  I adhere only the bodies of the butterflies and added some grey and white dots to the card, and called it a day.  I wish the woodgrain purple was a brighter purple, otherwise I like how the card came together.

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Rounding the corner to the finish line is a new card challenge I am trying out call AAA Cards.  They are another CAS or mostly CAS (clean and simple) challenge group, and as much as I struggle with the concept of CAS, I like pushing myself with it.  This week AAA cards wanted glitter.  That’s it, something with glitter.  So glitter they got.

I am pretty sure I failed with this card, just by using a bad glue at the end, but until it dried, things were going pretty smoothly.  I pulled back out the butterfly bases from Hero Arts Color Layering Butterflies, and embossed them with Recollections Gold embossing powder, cause it is so sparkly.  Then I pulled out a Sizzix die cut and used the negative of DCWV Twinkly Glints stack black glitter paper I die cut on.  Finally, (where the train jumped the tracks) I pulled out a sheet of old love sentiment vellum sheets.  I like the phrase ‘love is in the air’ for a pair of butterflies, but alas, I had already adhered the glitter paper to the card.  So I tired to use matte medium to glue the vellum down.  Guess which side of the card curled.  Yeah, it was a nice big fat fail, but I like where I was going before then.  Live and learn, and don’t repeat.  (I think I do remember why I don’t work with vellum.  Things go wrong when it is in my hands.)

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Coming in on the finish line of today’s post is a great color challenge from Always Playing with Paper‘s The Challenge.  They had a great bright color palette this week, giving us white, teal, orange and navy to work with.  Again this was another group of colors that didn’t scream “I love you”, but I think I made it work.  Actually I was really inspired by their new design, Laurel Seabrook’s gorgeous card.

I grabbed my Avery Elle Love Notes stamp set and pulled out the floral and leave build ons from it.  I stamped the leaves in Distress Ink peacock feathers for the large leaves and broken china for the small.  I stamped the small flowers in spiced marmalade and the large flowers in ripe persimmon.  Finally I stamped a bunch of hearts and the sentiment in Archival Ink, cobalt.  I adhered the card stock to a sheet of Craft Smith Embossed Brights teal(ish) card stock.  Finally I added the orange satin ribbon for just one more punch of color.  Now, a funny story.  I tossed the finished card over to my lounging husband (cause he’s a great guy and likes to look at my finished work) and he started laughing.  Apparently I forgot to add the YOU to the sentiment.  Sweetly, he kissed my head, handed me back my card, and recommended I added the word before I called things done.  I love him.  Such a great guy.

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So off I go.  Happy weekend everyone.  Make the most out of it.  And if you have a few seconds to spare, think of me on Sunday morning as I run my first Half-marathon in 6 and a half years.  It is gonna suck, because I am nursing a minor injury, but I will have pulled the trigger and gotten that distance under my belt again and accomplished a new goal.  Hopefully it doesn’t spend the entire time raining (which it is projected to).