Rubber Stamping & Card Making with Yapha

We got the notice a few weeks ago. “Please send 50 Valentines to school with your children, unlabeled, signed with their name.” I’ve given Eve the option each year, whether she wants to buy her Valentines or make them. In past years, Eve has wanted to buy store-bought Valentines, usually princess ones. This year however, she decided she wanted to make them. She liked thet idea of lollipop holders. So we looked through all of my Valentine-related stamp sets, and she settled on the cute image of two birds from the Love You Much stamp set.

We made up a sample, then got down to business yesterday afternoon. The whole family helped (well, except for Biscuit). I cut and stamped, Eve colored and signed, Steve glued and punched, and we all threaded the lollipops through. We managed to put together all 50 in less than 2 hours yesterday afternoon!

Here is our final result:

Stamps: Love You Much
Ink: Basic Black, Real Red
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White
Other: Watercolor Pencils, Crop-a-Dile

And here is a look at all 50 together. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself!

Steve punched the holes with the Crop-a-Dile. I asked him how he liked it, since I personally think it is an amazing punch. His reply? “It’s smooth! Like driving a Ferrari…”

When I saw this fabulous card by Gretchen Barron, I knew I had to make one with gummy worms in one of the sweet treats cups as well. And once again, the Stamping 411 Saturday Sketch Challenge lent itself nicely to including one of the sweet treat cups.

I started out by looking at the colors of the gummy worms. (And tasting a few for additional inspiration, of course.) They went from red to yellow with orange in between, so those were the colors I chose for my card. I made my own “ink pad” with drops of reinker on a baby wipe so that my stamped worms would have the same color variations as the gummy ones. I wanted to use an oval like in the sketch, so used a Stampin’ Write marker to ink up only “worm wishes” out of the rest of the phrase.

Stamps: Bugs & Kisses
Ink: Real Red, Only Orange, Yo-Yo Yellow, Versamark
Paper: Real Red, Only Orange, Yo-Yo Yellow, Whisper White
Accessories: Sweet Treat Cup, 1 3/4″ Circle Punch, Large Oval Punch, Scalloped Oval Punch, Scalloped Border Punch

I’m definitely having fun with these sweet treat cups!

Ever since the Top Note Die came out this summer, very clever demonstrators have been turning them into super cute owl bag toppers. When I saw this adorable Valentine’s Day owl bag topper that Krystal made, I knew I had to make one! I was so excited when I even found the Valentine’s Day candy corn. I ended up making two, one with the candy corn and one with Valentine M & Ms. We’ll give these to Eve’s kindergarten teachers, one of which can’t eat chocolate. (The horror!) They were so cute, and quick, and easy, we may make them for some of the other teachers as well.

Here’s a close up of the head.

Stamps: Love You Much
Ink: VersaMark (for embossing the beak)
Cardstock: Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Riding Hood Red, Basic Black
Accessories: Heart to Heart Punch, 1 3/8″ Circle Punch, 1″ Circle Punch, Top Note Bigz Die, White Embossing Powder, Small Cello Bag

What would Valentine’s Day be without chocolate? Quite depressing, no doubt! Here is the second project that we are making at my Valentine’s Day workshop on January 31. It is two peppermint patties, covered with the scallop punch, and packaged in a small cello bag with a Top Note topper. Sound familiar? It is basically the same as the Hanukkah Gelt I made. I love covering the peppermint patties! They come out so cute and yummy!

Here are the two patties:

And this is the finished project:

Stamps: Love You Much, Holidays & Wishes
Ink: Basic Black, Real Red
Paper: Real Red, Whisper White
Accessories: Top Note Bigz Die, Scallop Circle Punch, 1 1/4″ Circle Punch, Heart to Heart Punch, Small Cello Bags

We are thinking of making these as Valentine treats for all of the kids in Eve’s class. We are waiting to hear if there is a “no candy” rule or not.