Well, I guess, that says it enough, Happy Valentine’s Day, or for most, Happy day after V-day.  I am not having a bad holiday, but I am just not having the day any married girl wants.  My hubby is away on business, so alas it is just me and the kiddos.

The kids are great, except, needless to say with their Valentine’s day parties, all three were in a serious sugar overload.  When did Valentine’s day become the new Halloween?  What happened to little stickers in the cards you pass out…why does it have to be overwhelming large amounts of sugar?  Oh well, they loved it.

I know I haven’t been doing a lot of challenges lately, but that is because I have been super busy, and hopefully Thursday you will know why a little better (the post is coming I swear).

But I did get a little time today to craft, and well, craft I did and I tried to focus on some cute (or not so cute) valentine’s day cards.

And without further ado.

Over at Inspired By all The Little Things they have a beautiful inspiration photo that I really just adored.  The pinks and creams are what really spoke to me, so I started with that.

I knew I wanted the black in the photo to be a major player in the card too, so I cut up a bit of scrap black card stock.  It is clearance season at all the craft stores as they wait for new product, so I have some really fun steals in my boxes of stuff.  One of my finds was this fun Heidi Swapp foil, so I laid down a hot pink foil that spoke of love.  I then die cut with a Craftin Desert Divas die and cut the cream crafting fabric.  I knew the card needed more, so I added some hot pink stars, by rubbing in some picked raspberry Distress Ink and a hero arts stencil (also a craft find).  I added some pink ribbon and a fun little heart and left the card there.  No my usual flair, but sort of fun, right?

The gals over at The Paper Players has a fun color challenge this week.  They were looking for the colors Blushing Bride, Smoky Slate, and Copper Foil.  This one I found a little difficult, especially because I don’t have any copper foil.

What I did have was some Distress Stain in a copper color.  I pressed it out onto my craft mat and added several layers of the stain onto some watercolor card stock.  I then pulled out a holiday Bugaboo digital stop and colored him in focusing on the slate and blush color there.  I adhered the elephant onto the card with dimensional tape.  I finally added some die cut words to the card (using a Little B die set).  Yes the card is simple, but I think that copper color worked out, and I love that little elephant.

The team over at Catch the Bug blog page for the company Bugaboo have a fun theme this week.  They are looking for designs that show case Sunshine and Smiles.  I wasn’t certain that I was going to be able to do this, since I was trying to stay with a Valentine’s day theme, but I found this digital of the fun little birdie hugging a heart and figured it would be perfect.

I colored the image with my copics, trying to keep that bird sunshine yellow, and even added a little yellow to the background.  I pulled out some valentine’s day paper and couple of sequins and left it at that.

Finally we have a fun v-day card going along with the Fusion Card Challenge fusing there two looks together.  I like fusing both the sketch and the photo into my cards and think I did okay today.

I puled out another holiday Bugaboo digital stamp and colored the snarky gal in with my copics.  I then took some fabric and die cute a frame for the image.  I pulled out some Valentine’s day paper that really made me think of the photo and assembled everything together.

I know the image isn’t circular, but instead square, but I think I managed to get the sketch pretty well in.

That’s it.  My box of chocolate and I are off to bed.  Happy Valentine’s to all and to all a goodnight!