Lili of the Valley James - Big Heart Valentine's Day card

Hi blogging friends 

Today I am sharing a Valentine's Day card that I made for my daughter.  Even if you don't celebrate Valentine's Day per se, I think it is a great opportunity to send a card to someone to say how much you care about them.  My daughter and I also celebrated the occasion by baking some chocolate cupcakes and iced them with pink strawberry icing and sprinkles - yum!  

This card is also for the following Challenges:

Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge 67 of Anything Goes with a Twist - add a bow

Craftyhazelnut's February Patterned Paper Challenge which is 'Anything Goes' but Hazel must be able to see that you have used patterned paper as the whole idea of the challenge is to use up your stash of patterned paper - and let's face it, many of us have enough to keep us going for 10 lifetimes (I know I do LOL!).  And yet the lure of a fresh paper pad is so hard to resist........

I bought this adorable teddy bear stamp - James Big Heart - from Lili of the Valley UK just before Christmas but it hasn't seen ink till now.  I stamped the teddy using Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto KW Doggett smooth white cardstock and coloured the teddy using Prismacolor + Derwent Coloursoft + Lyra coloured pencils and Odourless Mineral Spirits ie: the Magic Coloured Pencil technique aka Gamsol Magic - then coloured around the teddy using blue chalk.

I paper-pieced the heart and ran a soft grey Tombow pen around the outer edge to try and give it some 'roundness'.

I stamped the teddy again onto a scrap piece of cardstock and coloured the flower and the paws holding the heart - then cut them out and popped them up on dimensionals.  I also went around all the edges of the paper pieces with a Copic black multiliner to hide the white of where I cut.  You can see a little of the dimension in this close-up here:

Here is another angle to help you see the dimension:

I went over any areas that needed the blackness touched up especially around his eyes and nose with a Copic black multiliner then used a white gel pen to redo the white dots in the eyes and nose.

The sentiment is also from LOTV from their newly released set 'Happy Bears' which has lots of teddy bear images and sentiments - see HERE.

All the designer papers are by Crate Paper - Love Notes - which I picked up from Spotlight late last year.  It is a gorgeous pad with soft reds and light teal colours - right up my alley!

I used a Wink of Stella clear glitter pen to add some subtle glimmer to the heart and rose which is very hard to see in the photo.   The centre panel was trimmed to 1/8" using my Perfect Layers Tools.

The light teal organza bow was made using my Bow Easy and I added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.  I glued the bow on using Fabric glue.  

I used an EK Success Arrows border punch to punch some tiny little hearts from the soft red cardstock (they are the leftover punchies that look like tiny hearts) and glued them around the teddy using Tombow Aqua glue.  Here is a close-up of that sweet teddy bear:

Once I had layered up the card, I attached a white cardstock base which was diecut using a circle die except that I moved the die up so that I still had a fold at the top.  The next photo explains what I mean if I am not making any sense:

I usually make my card fronts first then attach the front to a white cardstock base (unless it's a one-layer-card of course).

I think you could use this LOTV image for a Wedding Anniversary or Engagement too.

And now I thought I would share the gorgeous Boofle card that my daughter gave to me:

The papers and butterflies are by Kaisercraft from their Enchanted Garden collection.  The twine was saved from a clothing tag and the rhinestones are also by Kaisercraft.

My daughter knows that I love Boofle so I received a Boofle Gift bag filled with lots of lovely goodies.

Thanks for visiting my blog today.

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:  

Stamps:  LOTV James - Big Heart ST483, sentiment from LOTV Happy Bears SET088

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black

Designer Paper:  Crate Paper Love Notes 6" x 6" pad (2013)

Dies:  Lifestyle Nesting Circles and Nesting Scalloped Circles

Accessories:  Big Shot, dimensionals, Prismacolor + Derwent Coloursoft + Lyra coloured pencils, Odourless Mineral Spirits, paper stumps, Kaisercolour blue chalk, light teal organza ribbon, Fray Stop, Bow Easy, cardstock - soft red, light teal + KW Doggett Smooth White, Perfect Layers Tools, Wink of Stella Clear glitter pen, Black Copic multiliner 0.05, white gel pen, soft grey Tombow pen, Tombow Aqua glue, Stampin' Up Fuse Fast adhesive, Fabric glue

Punches:  EK Success Arrows border punch