Essence of Love Is Kindness!

This is a continuation of the Splitcoaststampers' Virtual Stamp Night Mini Challenges.  The second challenge was issued last Friday night at 6:00 p.m., ET and is entitled:  Don't Stand So Close!  Sound familiar?  Our hostess is doing a sketch challenge with a take-off from our COVID-19 social distancing and a song by The Police...Don't Stand So Close to Me!   This challenge requires that we use the sketch provided and incorporate 4 corners on our center panel all of the same shape...all circles, all stars, etc., which depict keeping our distance from one another.  

My 4 shapes are the sparkly circular beads on each of my corners.  I dressed up my sketch interpretation by adding a few more layers below the centered rectangle. . . 3 base layers:  vanilla cardbase, black mat, and newsprint mat, plus 3 layers for my centered rectangle:  Calypso Coral, black, and vanilla.  This card was saved and given to my wonderful Mom for her birthday.  See her finished card below:

This is the little birthday verse I cooked up to place inside:

Ingredients:  Stampin' Up products:  Cardstock--Basic Black, Caylpso Coral, Very Vanilla.  Patterned dsp--Typeset Specialty (2015-16 Annual/ retired).  Stamps--Love is Kindness (2015 Occasions/ retired).  Ribbon--1/2" Seam Binding--Calypso Coral.  Other: Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Colorbox--Charcoal (edge ink distressing).  Wink of Stella, Clear.  Copic Markers (tulips).  Jolee's All That Bling--Black Circle Bling Gems.  Size A6:  4-1/2" x 6-1/4".

Valentine's Day is Imminent!

Valentine's Day has been creeping ever closer, and here it is now in the imminent category!  I few weeks ago, I decided I should try to use up some of my old Valentine paper and embellishment stashes.  Then again, I also wanted to use some of the new products in the 2016 Stampin' Up Occasions mini catalog, so now I knew I was going to be pulled in both direction.  I decided to start with my stash so I wouldn't feel so guilty if I ended up using more new than old.

The first stash idea that popped into my mind was My Mind's Eye's original Lost & Found Union Square papers that I have had for six LONG years now!  It was first published in 2010 and I bought my first pieces then.  Over the next several years, I stocked up on a more and more each year if I saw them on sale, as they were a little pricey because most pieces had glitter on them.  Now, I even have the 6"x 6" paper pad that came out a few years after the original 12" x 12" collection was published.

The piece of paper from this collection that came to mind was what I called the red glitter LOVE paper.  Now, this 12" x 12" paper, of course, is made with scrapbooking in mind, so it has rather large patterns to deal with.  I measured the lower right-hand corner of this paper where the glittery red LOVE word was imprinted, and decided a horizontal card with the big LOVE word in the center would work really well.  My mind evidentally chewed around on this idea subconsciously for several days, and one day in the middle of the night, I woke with an image of the LOVE word fussy-cut out and popped up in the center with some layers involved, of course.

After several days of completing my errand lists, doctor appointments, and celebrating my husband's birthday were finally over and done with, I was able to get to my craft table around noon today.  By this time, I had actually pulled out the paper I was thinking of and had decided to use SU's Early Espresso as my cardstock base.  Today, I actually began working on this LOVE word card that had been fermenting for going on two weeks.  In the meantime, I had received my most current Stampin' Up order, and there were some of the things I had ordered that had also been popping in and out of my mind to use as well!  

My first step was to fussy-cut the LOVE word and its surrounding design.  I decided to underlayer it with Early Espresso cardstock, so I traced its shape onto the cardstock and fussy-cut it about 1/8" out from my trace line.  I wanted use my new corner punch from Stampin' Up; thus, I ended up using both the eyelet corner and the 2-scallop corner as well.  I was really please with this effect.  I adhered a layer of the pattern paper to my espresso cardbase, and I popped up the set of red glimmer and the top patterned paper from this base set of papers.  I then adhered my espresso, fussy-cut underlayer to my LOVE word and popped this set up as well.  I added some small and mini red gumdrop glitter gems to the front, and I was done! Below is the final version of my LOVE word card, which I think I am well satisfied with!

As is my tradition in cardmaking, my finishing job is to create an inside that coordinates and compliments the outside design that I have created, so I turned my focus to accomplishing just that.  I had the idea to use my new SU stamp set, Bloomin' Love as I liked the flourishing My Valentine stamp in this set.  I built a verse around using this very stamp, and voilá here is my completed inside:

Recipe:  Papers:  SU cardstock: Early Espresso, Red Glimmer, Very Vanilla (inside); MME patterned: Lost & Found--Union Square: Home Sweet Home-LOVE; Darice Kraft cs (inside).  Stamps: SU-Bloomin' Love (inside).  Ink: SU-Cherry Cobbler.  Punch:  SU-Curvy Corner Trio; EK-Scroll & Hearts Edger.  MultiCraft: Gumdrop Glitter Gems.  Computer-made verse (w/stamped My Valentine). Size: 4-1/2" x 6".