Welcome to InKing Royalty’s January Blog Hop! This year’s Blog Hop themes are inspired by a single word – and this month our projects are centered around LOVE. You’re certain to see some amazing ideas for Valentine’s Day in the hop, but there are other ways to honor love in the lineup, too. What fun! We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

Here’s my card front and inside, along withboth sides of the decorated envelope:

        

 

Lesson Learned

Just one of the many things I learned at OnStage/Orlando was to stop saying I am “just” a hobbyist demo.  I’m a demo with a fabulous hobby sounds so much better.  However, a hobbyist demo also means that I have to be very careful with how I choose my Stampin’ Up! products for purchasing.  My first priority is versatility and longevity.  Valentine’s Day stamps/bundles usually do not make it into my wish list, and the same goes fpr this year.  (If I still taught elementary school, I would have definitely purchased the Hey Love Cling Stamp Set!!)  

For this blog, I relied heavily on the DSP from Brian King’s DSP share.   The bold hearts in the various shades of Lovely Lipstick jumped out at me, especially for a card for my husband’s Valentine’s Day card.   While very happy and full of love, I used vellum to tone down the brightness of the Lovely Lipstick.  Score!   I needed to make sure the vibrant colors would pop, which caused me to use Basic Black cardstock to mat both the outside and inside panels.  

My next challenge required me to figure out how to adhere the vellum to the card stock.  I pulled out the epoxy hearts, again from an embellishment share from Brian King.  I used some of all three sizes of epoxy hearts and randomly spaced them out to sit on the DSP hearts, then placed tiny dots of Tombow Liquid Adhesive behind the hearts.  This trick allowed me to get the vellum attached without the adhesive showing through.  

Here’s a close-up of the epoxy hearts because they don’t really show up on the picture of the outside:

Two Stamp Sets, Two Die Sets

I’ve been pretty blocked creatively since Christmas.  However, once I picked out my DSP for this card, everything else seemed to fall into place. 

I pulled the Strong and Beautiful stamp set from the Occassions catalog, specifically for the “You are so Loved” sentiment for the inside.  The heart die and the cropped “love” is from the Celebrate You thinlit set.  Happiness abounded when my plan for the heart and sentiment on the inside actually worked out perfectly!  I cropped the “YOU” in Lovely Lipstick using the Celebrate you thinlit set.

Wood Words has the very textured heart stamp, which I used to stamp off Lovely Lipstick for the front of the envelope.  Then, I glued the same DSP onto the envelope flap, and then fussy cut it down.  

TA-DA!  Done!  Feels good to have created something of which I am proud!  Now, I feel I’m ready to take on some challenges.

Many Thanks!

Thank you for stopping by today.  If you feel inspired, please leave a comment. 

I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Katie Ferguson at Cottage Paper. You don’t want to miss all the inspiration found within this group of demos!

  1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
  2. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
  3. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
  4. Katie Ferguson at Cottage Paper
  5. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
  6. Windy Ellard at Windy’s Wonderful Creations
  7. Robin Myren at Songbird Designs by Robin
  8. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie
  9. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
  10. Nina King at InkPaperSequins
  11. Shawn de Oliveira at Shawn Stamps
  12. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
  13. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
  14. Robbye Hamilton at Miss Hammie’s Crafts