"F" is for "Forty" That is the number of Valentines I'm making for a Valentine Swap!

Also the age I will be turning this year, but I digress.

Back to the subject at hand (or heart?)-Valentines!

Saturday is Valentines Day and I was invited to a swap party by the Author of:

The Creative Entrepreneur
A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real

Lisa Sonora Beam

I have never been to a Valentine swap but it is reminiscent of school days when you brought Valentines to school for everyone in your class and maybe a special one for the teacher and a certain someone...

So I was told to bring:
A decorated shoe box with my name on the end
and to wear red or pink shoes!
And the count was just over 30 so I decided I would make 40, then I would have enough for my non-crafty friends too.

This is what I came up with:

Outside back.

Outside front.

Inside.

I went with a kind of snarky rebus

"A rebus (Latin: "by things") is a kind of word puzzle that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words."

Here is how I did it:

First I made a big a** mess. No really, I made a few prototypes out of scrap paper (the yellow and pink paper in the middle) and then the one out of red paper that I worked out the other elements.

I gathered all my stamps, inks and some other Valentin-ie elements from around the craft stash to play with.

These are the ones I landed on:

The top one that I used for the "I" or "eye" is Judikins Soul Windows #3 and the "U" or "you" is #3991 F. and the others were in my stash.

It's a bit hard to see but I stamped the real heart on a pink square of paper and embossed it with red embossing powder.

I inked the edges of the Valentine and the edge of the little foam pink heart sticker.

 

Now what do I "heart"? I "heart" my new Pink Comfort Grip X-Acto knife! It made cutting all the labels out dreamy!!!

And if you want to make some of these here is the folded envelope heart template:

But wait! there's more.

I didn't want to lose my Valentine so I thought I'd keep one for posterity and what better place than my altered journal book.

So here is what I did:

I marked a page in my book to allow plenty of room for the thickness of the card to easily slide through and then cut the slits with my tiny cutting mat under the page.

Then I simply slid my envelope Valentine in from the back. If you missed the post about the opposite page seen here pop on back to this post, it's a fun Silhouette Figure Study technique from:

True Vision
Authentic Art Journaling

By L.K. Ludwig

 

And now you can see both sides and easily remove it to read the inside.

Today's question:

What is your most memorable Valentine experience?

Mine: When I was little my mom threw me a Valentine party and made a post office out of a big refrigerator box. There was a window with doors that opened. It was so cool!

Leave a note in the comment section and you'll be entered to win a free book, just 'cause we love to hear from you!

Comments

[Bonnie Rabon]

I really love Valentines Day and your secret heart. Its quite clever.