I’m CASEing myself with this card. It’s the same general design as my previous cards with an addition of a strip of patterned paper from Papertrey Ink’s Three Piece Suit paper pad which has been in my stash for years. I needed a masculine card for a note of encouragement, and luckily, The Paper Players are looking for CAS Masculine cards. 

With the exception of the patterned paper, all the dies used are from The Greetery: The pen (Pen Pal), the postal background (Postal Frames), and the sentiment (Scripted Sentiments.) 

When the Pen Pal dies were introduced, Betsy showcased some of them with patterned and stamped papers, so I gave that a try which I quite like. 

In addition to the Paper Players, this is also off to the Word Power Challenge where the sentiment should take center stage. 

I recently won a very generous gift card at Pinkfresh Studios. I’ve been saving the lovely gift certificate I received for Christmas, but I had no trouble spending the money I won! Most of the order were for things that had been on my wish list for quite some time, but I also purchased the stamp and die, Magnificent Magolia, from a recent release. Once I was done making valentines, I was anxious to get it out for a play date. 

The first step was to emboss the image in gold. Then I chose a group of three pink Copic markers and two green markers. I considered two different dies for the background, but settled on the Notched Corner Frames which I die cut in white after die cutting the magnolias. Both were added to a pink card base.

The sentiment came from another, older, Pinkfresh floral set, Nothing But the Best. I had forgotten this lovely birthday sentiment which also included a die. It, too, was gold embossed, and I added three Clear Drops in Blush from Pinkfresh.

Looking out my window it’s hard to imagine that magnolias will be blooming in a few months. We’ve gotten several inches of snow every day for the last several days. Around noon today, the sun came out, but the wind is so cold it feels like -7°. Our snowblower “died” yesterday, so Tracy has had to shovel our long and steep driveway. We cancelled a meeting scheduled meeting here to night, as there is no easy parking on our street if the snow is piled up. Fortunately, if all goes well, we’ll be headed toward warmer climes this coming weekend. 

Pinkfresh has changed their monthly challenge so “anything goes,” I always think I’ll get an entry in, and I should, since I have a very large selection of Pinkfresh products. So this is off to the Pinkfresh February challenge.

I chose pink for the magnolias since The Flower Challenge is looking for pink, and a birthday sentiment so I could play along with Seize the Birthday, without the topping this round. It’s also off to Darnell’s NBUS, and follows along with her I.D.E.A.S. which this week is embossing. 

I’ve really had a fun time this year creating valentines. I originally bought this Spellbinder die, Parcel and Post, to create a valentine. I’ve used it for several occasions, but this might be the first time it’s shown up as a valentine.

I already had a red mailbox in the folder that I had die cut earlier. Once I assembled it, I looked through my embossing folders for a good background and chose Taylored Expressions’ Subway Tiles.  I used the smallest of The Greetery’s Nordic Hearts for the front of the mailbox bordered with a gold metallic scalloped “frame.” The sentiment embossed in gold is from The Greetery, Sentiment Suite: Love.

Then it was just a matter of diecutting hearts from a variety of papers, adding a bit of glitter to one, and assembling the letter going in the mailbox. 

This valentine is off to the Time Out Challenge. It’s a pick two and I actually used three: layer, heart, love. It’s my third, and last, entry into the Just Us Girls: Use a Heart Die–there are several here. 

Tracy gave me the Vintage Type die by The Greetery for Christmas. I thought it would be a good idea to use it to create my valentine for him. 

I had borrowed a friend’s die a year or so again, so putting this together went pretty quickly. The sentiment is also from The Greetery, Just My Type. It’s a great set, and there were several ways to combine sentiments. I’m a fan of this one. Here’s a closer look:

I’m sending this off to Festive Friday where I used Red, Gold, and a Love Sentiment. It’s also off to the Colorful Options Challenge. It’s been awhile since I’ve played along with them. 

I definitely misspoke in my last post. I did, indeed, buy two other die sets in January–both from The Greetery. Nordic Hearts was part of their recent release. I’m using it today for another valentine, but it will be in rotation all year since it’s perfect for anniversaries as well as thinking of you cards. The Cupid’s Arrow die feels more like a valentine purchase, but elements of that die will also work for other occasions. I made a valentine for my grandson with Cupid’s Arrow, but put it in the mail without taking a photo of it. 

This valentine (I made two of them) are off to friends, both of whom are wrestling with health issues. I chose the colors from The Color Throwdown Challenge: pink, brown, and white. I chose to use watercolor paper for texture on the card base. It’s not a pure white but I hope it counts. 

I used the border die from the largest of the three hearts in the set to dry emboss the front of the card. Then I die cut the mid-size heart and border from kraft and pink cardstock. I love the delicate design on the heart. 

The sentiment is also from The Greetery, Sentiment Suite: Valentine, stamped in pink on kraft and die cut with My Favorite Things Itty Bitty Strips. 

In addition to The Color Throwdown, I’m sending this off to CAS on Friday: Valentine and a second entry to Just Us Girls: Use a Heart Die. 

The only purchase I made for valentines this year was Concord and 9th’s Mix and Match Hearts. I started out die cutting many different colors of hearts which gave me a nice collection of not only hearts, but the frames for them as well. I played around with different layouts but ended up making three of the same design, but differing colors, for my three granddaughters here in Rochester. 

It takes awhile to inlay all the hearts, but it’s worth the time. There is an accompanying stamp set which adds words to the hearts. I tried using multiple words, but ended up liking one heart with a word, layered with some dimensional tape. 

You might notice a few pink hearts with some ink blending. I found a panel I had ink blended some time ago, and used it as one of the panels, and of course, got an array of ink blended hearts as well. You can see that panel in the last of the three valentines.

The sentiment on all three cards is from Simon Says Love You Greetings which I die cut with My Favorite Things Itty Bitty Strips. 

Not surprisingly, there are multiple card challenges looking for hearts and valentines. These are off to four of them:

First up, Just Us Girls is looking for Heart Dies (plenty of those here!) I’m also sending these to Double D where the challenge is Hearts and to A Cut Above where Anything Goes with a Die Cut. And last, but certainly not least, it’s off to Darnell’s NBUS. For a change it didn’t take me long to put this die to use.