Gearing Up for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is right around the corner!

In preparation, I've pulled out my Love Blooms and Love Bites stamps to help create this Valentine Luminary. By the way, if you don't already have these stamps, you'll LOVE the price they are right now!

Love Blooms

Love Bites

Valentine Luminary:

Decorating the luminary was really the final touch. Here's what happened before the rubber stamping began . . .

1. Cut cardstock to 6x12" and score at 2-3/4, 5-1/2, 8-1/4, 11".

2. Add stencil shapes to the scored paper so they overlap the first and third score lines.

3. Use a craft knife to cut along the edge of the stenciled shape that extends past the score line.

3. Stamp and mist to decorate. Fold on score lines and round corners, if desired. Use adhesive or glue to attach the 1" tab, creating an open rectangle. Place luminary over battery-operated votive. Hit the lights. Instant romance. :)

The luminary will fold flat for easy storage after Valentine's Day. Make one for the next season!

While in the Valentine decorating spirit, I gave these Clock Tower projects a little extra "love" to use as a love shack Valentine gift. I'll let the pictures do the talkin'!

Make garland with waxed linen thread and tiny punched hearts.

Small and Large Clock Tower Project

Little touches of red hearts go a long way

Retreat 2013 Time Of Your Life Unmounted Rubber Stamp Quote

Clock Mechanism hidden in the back

Have fun with your Valentine crafts! No matter how you express it, it's always fun to share the love!

Thank you for stopping by,
Kay at Club Scrap

It's Graffiti Blog Hop Time

Welcome to the Graffiti Blog Hop!

I've been having a great time playing with Graffiti . . . did you know this collection goes with almost everything? To prove my point, check out the cards I whipped up this week:

With Valentine's Day around the corner, I thought I'd see how well the Graffiti Stencil and the Love Bites stamps would play together. I think it's a match made in heaven!

I thought this card would be fun for my niece who turns 17 on Saturday. You might not notice it right away, but the background stamp on this card is a border stamp from the Hopes FontArt UM. It reminded me of chain link fencing. Cool eh?

I just love that Graffiti Art stamp, and it was perfect for this resist technique with the Green and Blue Neon Ink Pads. I paired it with a sentiment stamp from the Fire & Ice FontArt UM.

Can you guess what vintage kit elements I used for this card? You might not recognize them right away. I started with a Graffiti Print panel, overstamped with a huge text stamp from Up, Up & Away. Then I used white acrylic paint with the circle pattern on Fizz Stencil. I traced the arrow image from the Mirror, Mirror Stencil onto Graffiti pink, and cut it out with a craft knife. Finally Fizz pink brads added just the right finishing touch.

I encourage you to see what mixin' and matchin' you can do with your Graffiti kit and collections from the past. It's great fun!

Ready to hop? Here are the amazing bloggers sharing their artwork with us this month:

Julie at Cape Cod Scrapper

Inkstains with Roni

Deb at Liftbridge Cards and Crafts

DebDuz Scrappin' 

Jill's Place 

Tricia at The Efficient Crafter

Hetty at Craft Chaos

Kay's Keepsakes 

Cathy at The Artful Gamut 

Anne at Crzymom's Tidbits

Shona's Scraps 

Debby at Masculine Inspirations

Dishing with Janet 

Tiare at iClassyGirl

Lisa at Carpe Memoria

Marya at A Notebook Novel

Annette's Digital Musings 

Creatively yours,

Karen

Love is in the air.

Can you believe Valentine's Day is just around the corner? Need some incentive to get started on your Valentines? We have two stamp sheets that are perfect for your cards, and as luck would have it, they're 50% off through Monday!

The 2013 Love Bites UM sheet features a fun, flirty, and dare I say, snarky take on Valentine's Day.

 Here are some fun cards using the Love Bites UM. To view more cards, and Tricia's original blog post, click HERE.

The 2012 Love Blooms stamps are a more traditional way to express your love. I've always really liked the "faux postage" feel of the artwork, too!

Here are a couple of cards featuring these lovely stamps:

For more details on how the Love Blooms cards were made, click HERE.

I hope this inspires you to get creative. Now I gotta go get started on MY Valentines! Happy Saturday!

Creatively yours,
Karen

Yet Another Possible Spoiler!!!

Shhh . . . don't show this to Tricia since I'm probably in hot water yet from last Friday's JR Stencil Spoiler excursion, but I just had to show you this little project. It could possibly be a model/prototype/essence of something like an upcoming Club Stamp Project. When you get as excited about Club Scrap paper crafting as I do, it's difficult to keep it to yourself.  Just sayin'.

Here's me . . . lifting the lid off of a handmade wrapped box with my left hand while I take a photo with my right hand.

Take a peek at the little surprise inside. The art hangs down from the inside of the lid. Cool, huh?

I haven't seen a project like this before, so I'm thinking it's a Kay original! It has so many possibilities -- different sized box, other stuff hanging from the lid, etc.

The Love Bites Unmounted Rubber Stamps will aid in my crafting long after Valentine's Day. See how I used the stamp collection images for the inside of this project? It was great for Valentine's Day but will sit out year 'round. I used the awesome Up, Up & Away Stamps on the outside of the box.

Mum's the word to Tricia . . . but I'm pretty sure she's going to like it. Off to hide. Maybe she won't notice.

By the way, hope you had a nice Valentine's Day!

Thanks for looking,

Kay

Love Bites. Love Cards.

You likely already know about the fun "Love Bites" unmounted stamp set we released in honor of Single Awareness Day. Er, Valentine's Day.

It's a fun set that you can use all year, just to bring a smile to someone's face. The card making pack we created for the set creates a dozen super-fun greetings. How 'bout a tour?

The easel card format is pretty trendy right now. And yes, sometimes those we love can be annoying. It's okay to point that out every once in a while.

Need we say more, craft supply lovers?

Even grown ups enjoy coloring now 'n then. (Or is it just me?) I simply filled in the bottom of each heart with watercolor pencils and blended upward with a water brush.

Yes, more coloring. I love it! This time, just color around the perimeter of the hearts and blend inward.

Emily thought this would be fun for her girlfriends at school.

Understated in simple black ink. But I love this look. It doesn't have to be complicated OR time consuming, right?

I used those fab Faber-Castell Gelatos on the heart trio and stamped over the top once dry. Yummy.

I think this card is my favorite. If you've gotten this far into the blog, and you've actually been reading it, I've gotta share this story. Do you notice anything wrong with this card? Look closely at the greeting. It actually says "Lappy Valentine's Day". Somehow during the plate-making process, the "h" was dropped from the "Happy". I never even noticed it and used my production sample of the rubber to make these cards! Rita walked by the cards on display and noticed it right away. (Yay, Rita!) We made the call to "stop the presses"!!!! Luckily, they hadn't started pressing the rubber, so we made a brand new plate and tried again.

Lappy Valentine's Day!!

Here, I just stamped the hearts with watercolors and added a hand-drawn outline with a fine tipped black pen.

The Love Bites set comes with an instruction download that gives you more specific details on how to make the cards you've seen here. Whether you're celebrating singleness, fabulous friendships or the love of your life, make it a great day! You've got 12 days left to get those cards made and delivered! 

Love,

Tricia