Valentine's Day can be a very festive time for "love birds", but I have developed an affinity for the day, because my husband and I share this day to celebrate our wedding anniversary (I think he chose this date so that he wouldn't forget it). From our first Valentine's Day together as boyfriend and girlfriend, I have made an effort to make him a personal card every year. I think home-made Valentine's Day cards give off an aura of young love and in the spirit of keeping things fresh and creative, this is one tradition I like to keep going.
Today, I found myself rummaging through some old boxes and came across the very first Valentine's Day card that I ever made. The card looked like it had traveled through history, but it was still refreshing to reflect back on all our years together.
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| I believe that the inspiration for this card came from a Precious Moments coloring book that I owned years ago. I used poster board for the actual card and construction paper to cut out the dolls and their body parts. |
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At one point in time, the center heart used to pop up. I remember it taking weeks to put this card together. |
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I think I originally wanted the kissing "love birds" to be revealed behind the pop-up heart, but for some reason, that idea didn't really work out. |
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As a struggling student, I had to rely on the resourses I owned to put this card together...apparently, red glitter was not available to me.
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| To give the characters dimension, many of their body parts were drawn on separate pieces of construction paper, before being cut out, and subsequently glued together. |
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| The back of the card featured our initials. I didn't have to change my initials once we were married. |
For today's Valentine's Day card, I decided to go back to the heart shape design. This card turned out to be fairly easy to put together and didn't take very much time.
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| For this card, I used scrapbooking stickers that I puchased from Hobby Lobby, clear glue, scissors, construction paper, and the concentric hearts were put together using Microsoft Word on my computer. |
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The colors that I chose for this card were the typical Valentine's colors. I selected the red and pink construction paper for the front and back of the card, while the white paper would be placed inside the card for the message.
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After selecting the colors I wanted to work with, I then folded the red paper in half to make the front and back of the card. |
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The next step was to cut out the hearts in made on the computer, to use as stencils. |
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Once the first stencil was cut-out, I place it onto the construction paper in the position that I wanted it. The left side of the heart extended past the folded edge so that the card, once cut, would open like a book.
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After tracing the stencil onto the card, I cut out the first and largest heart shape. |
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I took the next largest heart and cut it out to use as a stencil for the first layered heart. I wanted to layers to stand out, so I aternated the pink and red colors. |
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After traced and cut out the second heart stencil, this time, on pink paper to begin alternating the colors for the hearts. |
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Once the second heart was cut it, I placed it onto the card in my desired position.
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It was time for heart number three...
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The smallest heart was used for the center of the card.
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After all of the hearts were cut out, they were placed into the desired position and then glued together.
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A separate stencil was used to make the heart that was placed on the inside of the card. This heart was use to capture to message.
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To add a little flair to the message, scrapbooking stickers were used.
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To decorate the front of the card, I only used cardstock stickers.
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…And voilà
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