Funky Valentines Card

Just because Valentines is just round the corner doesn't mean we all want to go all gushy, pink, roses and lace so I decided to go bold and create a very simply Valentines Card using bright colours, bold hearts and a quick 'do in an evening' idea.

I started and cheated by using a ready made pre-cut card with a square aperture and three folded. This gave me a place to add the centre plaque of the card. I then added the large square heart patch from Creative Imaginations - Christine Adolphs range of funky heart shapes. All of these hearts have a lovely glossy finish making them eye catching and simple to use. Just peel off and stick in place as the glue is pretty strong - be careful to position carefully before pressing. I used the rest of this pack later on to add the last of the finishing touches to the card.

Choosing the paper for this project was quite easy as I wanted to choose papers suitable for either a male or female recipient. The sky blue and fuschia pink papers I chose were both from the Flora Festival pack from Recollections. Both are bright coloured but have subtle background writing giving the card a bit of extra detail.

Once I had the papers I used the card as a template and cut out the papers so that each colour came half way across the card and a quick trim with my guillotine meant that they were ready to glue to the front of the card. Just to give it a bit more depth I used Tsukineko Dew Drop ink pad in Rocket Red Gold and using the ink pad I gently applied some of the ink around the edges of the newly cut out square aperture of the card. This is a great hint if your edges are not exactly flush or you want to blend two very different colours together to give a more unified look to your card. I simply glued both sheets on the front of the card and trimmed any uneven edges. The aperture still did not look as tidy as I wanted to so I measured the aperture again and cut a thin frame to neaten the edges. I kept one side slightly thicker than the rest and used a pen to trace round a fake sewing or dotted line.

Whilst I was going to use the adornments from Christine Adolph, I also wanted to make a starker heart motif for the front of the card and I dug in my stamp collection and found a very simple almost cartoon heart stamp that I had saved from one of my craft magazines. Using a black ink pad I stamped this onto pale cream card and leaving a small border I cut around the shape.

Once the hearts were ready I simply placed the ready made hearts on the card and left a bit of space for my focal heart. Using padded glue squares I added the heart to the front. Having a slightly 3D effect gave the card a bit of added interest and stopped the card being too uniformally flat.

I will be attempting some more romantic cards later this week but hope that this Valentines card gives you the courage to go bold this Valentines day!