The challengiest ....

.... challenge of the year for me, card-wise, is my husband's Valentine's card!!  In the days before I started making cards, we used to compete to see who could buy the most non-soppy, yet still recognisably Valentine-y, Valentine's card!!  I remember winning one year with a card that was just plain matt black, no sentiment, with a tiny embossed foil red heart in the centre.  Nice card it was too!!  I was reminded of it when I was thinking up this year's effort.  Here's what I made:

I used last week's Deconstructed Sketch, and I'm also entering this into a few of the Valentine's challenges around: Craft your Passion, Kaboodle Doodles, Little Red Wagon, Moving along with the Times, also Basic Grey Challenges ("Your Favourite" - it's my favourite BG Christmas papers - "Jovial"!), Card Crafters' Circle ("Paint the Town Red") and Stampin' for the Weekend ("Distressing").  Phew, that's quite a list.

Here's a side-shot of the layers of this card, I like the enamelled hearts.

Recipe:

Papers: Basic Grey "Scarlet's Letter" and "Jovial"

Sentiment: from an MFT Pure Innocence set

Punched Hearts: MS Valentine Lace

Other: Black Tulle, zig-zag scissors, Tim Holtz black enamel accents, glossy accents

 

I was chuffed when I found out that my last card won not one, but two challenges, nice to see the old name up in stars!!!  Not to mention getting a blinky for the sidebar and winning a set of stamps too.  Yippee!!

 

Thanks for looking!

 

No soppy stuff ....

.... here!!!

Well that's a big lie. Keryn's dare this week on Daring Cardmakers is:

"My dare for this one is the predictable, someone had to do it, theme of Valentines. Although I don't want you to feel you just have to make Valentines Day cards, feel free to make a card fitting any theme you like as long as it has a heart somewhere on it. Stamped hearts, punched hearts, diecut hearts, heart embellishments, cut from patterned paper, whatever, whenever as long as it has the right shape".

Now I just happened (yet again, cough cough!!) to have made this card a few weeks ago. Started with my new set of Hero Arts heart stamps which are very yummy, and BG Scarlet's Letter paper which was the first paper I HAD to have when I got into this crafting lark and I still love!!! And then after a lot of stamping, embossing and an awful lot of inking, I had this!!! DH will be surprised to receive such a lavish Valentine's card - or suspicious!!!! Ha ha ha!!!

It was a sunny afternoon and I hoped the light would be good for the photo - but, thanks to my neighbour's accursed new extension - I don't think I'll get good photos any more even in high summer. Grrrr! (OK, everyone Irish reading this knows there's no such thing as high summer here!)