#iPPP: Valentine's Day...A Year Later

Holy camole macarole!!!  Looking back, my last #iPPP post was last year, this same week!  I knew it had been quite awhile, but geez!  Um...well, then...hello again. :>

This year, we found some really cute li'l heart printables with the perfect Valentine's sayings for the themed pencils we slid through the cut out hearts on Pinterest, of course.  You can find them on Or So She Says where Sharon, from Lemon Squeezy shared them.  Loved that they were a fun non-candy option!

But, since I've annoyed myself and forgotten to snap a pic, let's move onto what I did remember to document from Valentine's Day.  And that is what has quickly become a favorite tradition:

hubs brings living flowers for me

and for his sweet li'l girl too.

When we keep them alive long enough, they can be planted in the backyard next month.  Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't.  I hear there's this little thing plants like called water???  So far, they're looking good and my girl's old enough now to help remind me of that tiny life sustaining necessity. Fingers crossed!

Finally coming back for an #iPPP visit with

G*Funk*ified & Jumping With My Fingers Crossed & Angela Amman

#iPPP & WW: Valentine's

Thanks to Pinterest, Valentine's Day was a glowing hit here!

Looking for something for upper elementary age kids that didn't include candy, I came across these glow stick bracelet Valentine's.  Initially, I was just thinking of these for my older boy, but the wee girl thought they were so cool and wanted to make them for her class as well.

Source: theteacherwife.blogspot.com via Karen on Pinterest

 

 

Glow sticks send me zipping down Girl Scout memory lane....but, that's another story for another time and another day.

 

Party City had the glow sticks (though, with 49 kids to buy for, these were the most expensive Valentine's we've ever made or bought!) and thankfully, the wee girl had the time and hand cut out all 49 hearts for both her classmates and her brothers.
 

Hubs has never been big on flowers, but ever since having a daughter, he brings me live flowers to plant in the garden every Valentine's Day.

And another one for her!

 

Hope you're enjoying your February.
It's one of my favorite months of the year!

 

 

Linking up with these awesome sites - come join us!

#iPPP with G*Funk*ified & The Sunday Spill

Word-less/ful/ish Wednesday at Seven Clown Circus, Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia,  Live and Love Out Loud, Jenni from the Blog

Pink Pretties & Debate Delight ~ Wordful Wednesday

Last month (seriously?! February's already over?!) Hubby brought home a pot of pink tulips for our little Princess & I for Valentine's. I've loved waking up to them every morning in the kitchen window.

And silly me, didn't think to pull them down to take a quick, pic.  Rather, I climbed up and balanced o'er the top of them and clicked with my ol' trusty point & shoot camera that I've used for the last five years.

Remember that camera that I said I was looking to retire to back up status??

Well, now it officially is!  {{SQUEAL}}  The Next Great Camera Debate is over and this beautiful Nikon D3100 arrived on my doorstep just a few days ago!

While I've shot with film SLRs before, it has been a long time, so for now, I've got this baby set on Auto until I learn how to use it in Manual mode.  And I picked up a couple of books to help me out along the way, Nikon D3100 Digital Field Guide and Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots.

I'm having a blast clicking away, playing around and checking her out.  Captured my boy's blue mohawk'd hair for Crazy Hair Day at school, Princess chasing the cat around & giving scratches until said cat was purring nonstop & a puddle of drool, and I can't wait til I have a moment to take this new sweet thing out on one of our country drives!

Okay, now who can recommend the perfect chic bag to carry it in???  Please do tell! :>


Linking up for Wordful Wednesday!

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Disclosure:  Camera image credit: Amazon. I'm loving my new camera & thankful for the help of the two books that are keeping my noggin' from turning to mush from information overload. One more piece of honest information for you, the camera & book links are affiliate links.

Perfect Time

Thought that Valentine's Day is the perfect time to celebrate some of the Little Things that Make Me Smile!

* Listening to the rain.....made me smile!

* Handing my girl a few sheets of cardstock and seeing her pull out a heart stencil, scissors & glue......made me smile!

* And then watching her hand crafting Valentine's for her Dad, brother, & I, all by herself today......made me smile!

* Tucking a mini Valentine into my boy's lunchbox this morning.......made me smile!

* Seeing him smiling & excited as he told me about his rockin' awesome day today.......made me smile!

* Hand cutting hearts for my family today.......made me smile!

* Opening the door this evening and seeing Hubs walking up with a pot of pink tulips in his hand.......made me smile!

* And then hearing that the tulips are for both wee girl and I....made me smile!

* Finally getting to see the Valentines that wee girl had spent all morning creating......made me smile!

* Having the whole family together.........makes me smile!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

What's making YOU smile today???

Who can {Resist} some Valentine love?!

Nichole Heady has issued another challenge this Day 5 of Papertrey Ink's anniversary festivities and I got on it. We've been asked to create using the emboss resist technique (Nichole has a video on her challenge post with a demo of this technique).

When I first started stamping over fifteen years ago, I used to emboss anything I could get my hands on. I worked in a rubber stamping store and always came home covered in ink, glitter, and embossing powder (I never said my creative process was neat!). And like many things that are played with over and over, embossing was put on the back burner for awhile and only fairly recently have I started playing with it again. This is one time I'm glad I can be a pack rat as I saved all my old embossing powders and have only bought one set of colored embossing powder in over a decade (I had a ton of stuff from when I started stamping.....just had to love a 50% employee discount, right?!).

For the background, I dug deep into that stash of stamps from the nineties and pulled out an old All Night Media sweetheart set......conversation heart stamps...too cute! It always feels so good to pull from supplies I've had stashed away. There are nine stamps in this set and I chose four to randomly stamp. This set has come in handy over the years as my son has used them a couple of times, back in his preschool days, for handmade Valentine's. I especially remember him using the heart that says, "COOL" quite often!

So, this is another flat card, but its not for the easy mailing, reasonable postage pile. I left the ribbon and bling off of it and stuck to the brown and red color scheme to keep it more masculine......because its for my Hubby! I've tucked it away and this time around, I am going to remember to not dump my camera's pics onto the family computer!! lol

Are your Valentine's made? I haven't decided if we're going handmade or the pre-printed uber cool character ones this year for my son's classmates yet. I suspect, like last year, that it will be the latter! Hope your week has been a good one and that you have a fun and peaceful weekend ahead of you!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Kraft & Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink
Stamps: Sweetheart conversation hearts - All Night Media; love - Vap! Scraps (it was a dollar stamp from JoAnns, I think)
Ink: Creamy Caramel & Real Red - Stampin' Up!; Versamark
Other: clear embossing powder - stash

Count me in!! Just Us Girls #16

Yippie!!!!! My fingers are covered in ink & burgundy marker and not only do I have something inky to offer, but for a challenge! I am tapping my toes to my own personal Happy Dance to get my hands inked up again. :>


I have been wanting to play along with one of the Just Us Girls challenges since they started, but somehow, I just kept coming up short on time. And while time is still short.......I made sure to craft some of my own time for a little inky {Love} for their JUGS #16 Color Challenge.

After playing along with Tim & his fabulous Christmas tags, I have a bunch of office tags left over. When I use them, I like to adhere two together so that they stand up to ink and paint much better and then I lightly ink the backside, so its pretty too. (The line in the middle is actually not nearly as obvious......its raining, its pouring, and I had to use a flash as I'm not set up for indoor photography......yet.) I inked the whole thing in soft pink, went over most of it with burgundy, adhered some Noteworthy chipboard alpha stickers, blinged out a chipboard heart, popped it up on foam tape and cut out a bunch of blingy swirls to make a flourish that would fit and work with the tag and voila...a happy little Valentine taggy {love}.

Oh yea! When I experimented with making my own {custom} colored ribbon back in November, I was using polyester satin ribbon. And since I did not have a single piece of burgundy ribbon anywhere in my overflowing ribbon collection (how could that be?!), I thought I would make some, using white nylon organza this time.......and it worked beautifully!! I highly recommend giving it a try.....I'm so happy I did!

Twenty Ten has kicked off to a bit of a slow start , but I am thinking that a little ink goes a long way towards rejuvenating a spirit and putting a grande smile on my face!

Supplies:
Ink: Bravo Burgundy, Pretty in Pink - Stampin' Up!
Chipboard: Making Memories, Cosmo Cricket
Bling: K & Company, Prima
Ribbon: Stash
Tag: Office Depot

Happy Valentine's Day!

Okay, okay, I know, its really tomorrow. But, I'll be with my family and friends celebrating our loss and others' win in the Fantasy Football league we participate in.

This is my husband's Valentine's card. Its super simple, just the way he would like it! (Well...hopefully, he likes it...even though its quite pink!! ;>) At 8 1/2"x 3 1/2" folded, its a tad odd shaped for an envelope. But, this one will be hand delivered, so no biggie there. I retraced the stamped "BE mine" sentiment with a Pink Spica glitter pen. I think I might have already mentioned this, but I LOVE these pens! I hope everyone enjoys the holiday weekend!!



Supplies:Cardstock: PapertreyInk - Stamper's Select White & Raspberry Fizz
Patterned Paper: From stash, from about eight years ago.
Ink: PapertreyInk - True Match Raspberry Fizz
Ribbon: PapertreyInk - Raspberry Fizz twill
Other: Pink Spica glitter pen by Copic

PTI's Bitty Dot Sketch Challenge

Saturday mornings are a delight for me as my husband gets up with the kidlets and I can sleep in if I want (and if we have no plans in the a.m.). Well, no such luck this morning. My head was spinning with ideas for a couple of altered items to give out in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the inspiration and motivation keep flowing and I get them done in time. And maybe they'll make their way onto here! But, I digress.....onto today's project.

With 95 spools of gorgeous ribbon on the line, of course I just had to participate in Papertrey Ink's Bitty Dot Sketch Challenge on Nichole's blog. PTI's Heart Prints has definitely been my most used stamp set as of late, so I immediately grabbed it for this card.



The card base is black cardstock (from my stash....I'm almost out though, so it will be a good excuse to add some of PTI's True Black to my next order wink wink), layered with PTI's Raspberry Fizz stamped with SU's Craft White ink (which for some reason I was really arguing with today....usually, we are pretty good friends!) using a stamp from PTI's Polka Dot Basics set. On top of that is PTI's Pure Poppy cardstock. The sentiment and hearts are from Heart Prints, stamped in SU's Craft White ink and PTI's Raspberry Fizz Perfect Match ink, respectively. The small heart is glittered with JoAnne's ultrafine pink glitter, outlined with Ranger's Xmas Red Stickles, and popped up on foam. It is WAY more sparkly IRL, but I lost the sun before I was able to go outside to take a picture. The hearts are punched out using the Heart EK Success punches that PTI sells to go with the stamp set. And to finish the card off, I used some narrow red satin ribbon from my stash and three red Me & My Big Ideas icons bling. I wonder what Nichole has in store for us tomorrow!