Two Hearts Love Valentine and Parisian Inspired Amour Valentine

Morning Friends,

Today I'm sharing a special Valentine made for my dear husband Richard.   We will be married 30 years this May so I wanted something special to mark the occasion. After almost 30 years, you get to know each other pretty well. And like all couples we've shared a lot of joy and happiness and endured our fair share of ups and downs. Its not always easy, but our shared faith remains the one constant that helps us overcome wherever life throws our way.  

To make this card, I began by playing with 1/2" strips, originally thinking that I would basket weave them, but after doing so, they looked too busy.  I loved how they looked just staggered in different colors so I went with that for the background.   I finished the background off  by double matting it for a clean and simple look.  Then, I sewed two different hearts together to say that with love, two hearts beat as one. The hearts open to a sentiment that reflects this shared meaning in our lives.  I finished it off with some lovely Prima flowers and their beautiful open fret work die leaves.  I love the vintage colors of these papers by My Minds Eye.  The bold color combination, while subtly vintage, is still quite striking with the black and cream accents. 

Using the same MME paper collection, here's one more Parisian inspired 'Amour' Valentine card.  This one is available at my Etsy today.  Very similar techniques only I used a 6x6 negative heart overlay which is attached to a blank card so you can add your own sentiment. 

Thank you for dropping by and I hope you enjoyed this share. Wishing you and your loved ones a very Happy Valentines Day!   Until next time ... Big Hugs ~ Dawna

Our Story

Hi Friends,

One more layout from Teresa Collins sweet Summer Stories paper collection.  Teresa's signature style is clean and simple, which I love, but I thought I'd grunge it up a bit by distressing  this one.  I started with a background cut from the Paper Lace Cricut Cartridge, turned over the center circle and popped it up to layer my photo mats.  

I did make things easy on myself by using several ready made Prima flowers and leaves thought out my three flower clusters.  The big pink and black script flowers were handmade from Tim Holtz's Tattered Floral die. I love his die and the flowers it creates! 

To finish things of I inked the edges and sewed around the layout.  I also distressed the 'Story' chipboard pieces.  As we take one last look at the whole page you can see that I added more chipboard in the lower left corner and added a little 'photo' ticket next to the photo mat.

I enjoyed working with all the different colors in the 'Story' banner, but I have to admit that I'm not too sure about distressing papers that are styled for the clean and simple look.  Like all things artsy, I'm sure it will probably grow on me though!  

Well that's it for me today.  I hope you enjoyed this share and that you'll consider joining the site to see what comes next.   Have a happy day dear friends!  Big Hugs ~ Dawna

A Day to Remember

 Morning Friends,

Just dropping by to share a layout I created using Teresa Collins very pretty Summer Stories Collection.  I used a few of my favorite techniques on this simple layout.  I say simple because so many layouts are being done with so much mixed media these days, that sometimes I think we are losing sight of the main reason we do them!  That of course would be to showcase our beautiful pictures.  While I haven't added mine yet, it is sure to be front and center on this layout. 

A Day to Remember

Here's is a close-up of the large rosette which I cut from the CTMH Artiste Cartridge then layered it with a large scalloped circle and a few chipboard sentiments to use as my title.  The bird and flower frame is from Dusty Attic.  I gessoed the chipboard frame, and used water color pencils to add a touch of color to the bird and leaves.  I didn't care for how the original flowers turned out, too coral or orange, rather than pink, so I just covered them with the organza black and white flowers.  And you can see the doilies in the this picture a little bit better too.

 

You can see that I also gessoed a doily stencil from Prima in the background which softened the look of the printed papers.   And last you can see some random zigzag sewing around the frame and edges. 

At the bottom there is another smaller rosette with a large rose chipboard to balance out the page.  I used Prima's sparkle paste on the rose chipboard to make it very sparkly!  Note to self:  A little goes a LONG way! 

As we take one last look at the whole page you can see that I've created two peek-a-boo lace and pearl openings.  

 

Overall I like the effect of the pink and white on black, to me its has a very striking effect.  I hope you enjoyed this layout. 

Until next time, thank you for dropping by.   I hope you have a wonderful  day my scrappy friends!  Hugs to All ~ Dawna