Valentine's Day Cards

This could be a record for me.  Three blog posts in one week!  I have been creating a lot so I want to share as much as I can.  Not every week will be this filled with sharing but I do hope to continue to create on a more regular basis. 

Today's post is a little different.  I don't normally make Valentine's Day cards but since it's coming up I wanted to share some fun card ideas.  I also wanted to challenge myself using my Cricut and that's where today's post arose.  Using my Cricut and the Wild Card cartridge I wanted to see how many cards I could make using only these two shapes: a heart cluster and a heart frame.  I actually created 5 cards using only these two diecuts!  Let me show you what I came up with.  

These first two cards are very similar and I had the idea for these when I chose my shapes to cut.  I lightly adhered the heart cluster to my card base and sprayed it lightly with Glimmer Mist.  This gave me a sprayed heart cluster to use on one card and a blank cluster on the card I sprayed on. 

I then grabbed a stamp and heat embossed it using clear embossing powder.  I then sprayed over both sentiments (one lightly and one heavily) to get the different looking effects.  I also cut them differently and dry embossed one of the cards.  I covered the heart cluster on the left card with Glossy Accents to add some dimension.  Two simple cards from one diecut. 

This next card is my personal favorite that I created.  I took all of the heart shapes (there were four sizes in all) and inked each one a different shade of pink/red creating an ombre effect.  I then stitched them to the front of a piece of cardstock and adhered this to my card base.  A cute sentiment in the corner and this card is done. 

For the next card I actually used the piece of paper that I cut the shapes from as a stencil. 

I started by sponging a heart in the center of my paper with my darkest purple ink.  I then moved my 'stencil' and inked a heart on either side of the dark heart with the next lightest color of ink.  I moved the 'stencil' again and inked hearts in the lightest color of ink.  I just love that ombre look.  I added some punched border strips, a sentiment, and some white dots with my gel pen and card  four is complete!

This last card is my husband's favorite.  I stamped and embossed the dancing figures on the right side of a piece of cardstock using a mask to cover my sentiment area.  I also stamped and embossed the sentiment.  I then sponged over the whole piece with Tattered Rose and Aged Mahogany Distress Ink.  After wiping the ink off the stamped image I cut the piece down to fit on a card base and added a piece of spare ribbon.  I also stitched on the heart frame to highlight my sentiment.  I adhered this to the card base and it's finished! 

So there you have it.  Five different cards using only two different shapes from my Cricut!  This was a fun challenge for me.  I love that I only had to cut shapes once and was able to create five cards.  It's always fun to think out of the box.  I hope you'll try this the next time you are in a creative mood.  Thanks for stopping. 

Supplies:

• cardstock- misc
• stamps- Close to My Heart (Seasonal Celebration D1112), Hero Arts (CL582), Uptown Rubber Stamps (Spiral Love), Paper Inspirations (Vertical Romance)
• inks- Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Tattered Rose, Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick, Picked Raspberry, Barn Door, Aged Mahogany, Victorian Velvet, Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord), Memories Dye Inkpad (Black), Versamark (Watermark)
• Cricut cartridge- Wild Card
• embossing powder- Ranger (Holographic, Super Fine Clear)
• tools- We R Memory Keepers (Sew Easy), American Crafts (Knock Outs border punch)
• embossing folder- Cuttlebug (Polka Dots)
• misc- dimensional adhesive, Ranger (Glossy Accents), Tattered Angels (Glimmer Mist-Cranberry Zing), Signo Broad pen (White), ribbon