Valentine Ornament Anyone?....

That's right...I said Valentine ornament!

I know it's crazy that we just took down the Christmas tree decorations, but over at The Cutting Cafe, the hits keep coming and the holiday festivities never stop!

So let's go see what I've made using the following cut files...

Heart Trio Card

By enlarging this heart to desired size and duplicating it twice, I was able to join the sides together and paint it black, crackle it and then paint it red. The weathered wood appearance makes this faux wooden ornament look so pretty with die cut flourishes, ribbon, berries and wire hanger.  

About 6 of these would look fabulous scattered around the Valentine tree.

Using the Heart Trio Card again, I made three different smaller ornaments and continued with the rustic, primitive look.

These hearts were different shapes and cut out from an old BINGO card for stability.

Some hearts got twine, others received moss, but each has a cute vintage sentiment, berries and bow.

For a larger table display or inside of a cabinet, I chose to use A-Z Letter Set and create my own X and O sign that I've covered with decorative cork sheets.

What's really fun about this set is that I turned the O into a shaker! 

 And finally, here are some little tags that could substitute as ornaments as well.  With the twine loop on them, the possibilities are endless.

For these I used the following:

Heart Trio Card Set and Mini Card and Envelope Set

Regina designed this file to be a tri-fold card, but by cutting down the perforated lines, I was able to make three tags/ornaments.  

Here you can see that I've lightly secured the envelope fold under a gently glued heart.  This allows for you to open the envelope and write a tiny message inside for the recipient.

Side view....

And there you have it.  

Four different and unique ideas to gift or decorate with and all of them from the fabulous files of 

The Cutting Cafe

Biggest of hugs to you and Happy Crafting,

Lisa xx

 All DT projects are posted at The Cutting Cafe Blog on the 7th and 21st of each month. We'd love for you to visit and be sure to leave a comment for Regina. She selects one lucky person to receive 3 FREE files of their choice!

A REALLY Love-REALLY Hate Kinda Valentine Thing....

Hate might be too strong a word, but loath, abhor and dread are runner's up.  Now I'm not referring to love or the celebration of love, I'm referring to making tags.  If you want to see a grown woman throw a full on tantrum; sit me in a chair and tell me that I have to make a tag.  

I could admire other people's tags all freaking day long and well past the cows having come home, but making my own gives me a butt pucker of 10.

So what did I do yesterday?  I decided to combine one of my favorite things with one of my least favorite things and see how it went.  

A favorite thing - Kewpies

Step 2

Still having fun because I'm just playing with colors, inks and sticky things....

And then the (gasp) tag!  

I decided that in order to keep the hyperventilating to a minimum, I'd start from the beginning of Tim Holtz 1st book Compendium of Curiosities I and re-learn and practice the techniques. Here I used Wrinkle Free Distress (pg.33), Scribble Stain Distress (pg.34), and Double Distress- brick wall (pg.40).

And here is the finished tag.

In the end, it made me smile so I cut that very word out and now it's on my shelf for a Valentine gift to me :)

Yeah to persistence overpowering belligerence!

Hugs and Happy Facing Your Crafting Fears,

Lisa x 

Special Delivery.....

Good grief! It's been one month and a day since I've posted on my blog, so please excuse the cobwebs.  I haven't maintained this place very well, but I hope to be up and running more consistently with random whatnot's and so forth's.  But for now, I have a very special little Valentine mailbox to show you that comes from the genius mind of Regina at The Cutting Cafe.  

Follow this link here for more details.

A forest fairy has teamed up with Cupid and left their love child in our living room where the beautiful mailbox has taken up residency on a branch. 

Awwwww......

In other news, I'd like to announce that I am 2 weeks along in gestation of a bouncing baby kidney stone that is hell bent on trying to kill me,   We're baffled for a name, so we're taking suggestions. With any luck we'll have a delivery any day now.

Happy February and for those of you that celebrate, Happy Almost Valentine's Day!

Enjoy the video :)

Hugs and Happy Crafting,

Lisa xx

The Cutting Cafe

Will you?

I can't feel my toes and my spine feels like fluid.  Can you take one guess what I've been doing? Shoveling!!

 Winter is definitely here and in one day I've already met my personal quota of snow! 

Honest, I'm good...Spring can sprung anytime!! 

A little reprieve from the cold and something that warms my heart is this beautiful cut file from Regina's Cutting Cafe called Valentine Window Card Tops and I've included her wonderful Feb 14 sentiment as well.

I'm late posting this, but there was the issue of frozen fingers trying to type...

Hope you are well wherever you are AND staying warm. :)

The Cutting Cafe

Hugs n' Happy Crafting,

Lisa xx

You're Sure Sooee.....

There's love in the air down on the farm and this bit o' bacon, Happy As a Pig, is flaunting his pork butt to prove it!  Come join the fun challenge at Top Tip Tuesday where it's use your 

Favorite Sketch Challenge. 

 My favorite sketch is from My Creative Sketches and this follows their January sketch. Too cute!!

Thank you so much for your visit and all of your very sweet comments. 

Hugs n' Happy Stamping,

Lisa x

Valentine Wheelbarrow

Can you feel it? The lovey dovey ooey gooey mushy kissy stuff is in the air and I'm loving it!  

Here's another super adorable cut file from The Cutting Cafe.  A wheelbarrow heaping with hearts.  It's a CAS style, but speaks volumes.   File used was Wheelbarrow Deliveries; cut file 

 ( Set includes 2 styles of wheelbarrow, wheelbarrow fillers and sentiments) 

The Cutting Cafe

Hugs n' Happy Stamping,

Lisa x

Valentine Sundaes Ornament #5

Okay, I lied...

I said I'd make 8, but I'm afraid I'm stopping at 5 types of ornaments on the tree.

I'm so happy with these, I can't imagine trying to make anything else and I think our tree is stuffed full sufficiently to bring in the holiday o' love.

I wanted to share with you how I made these and they're CHEAP!  Almost everything came from The Dollar Store except for the Washi tape and the red yarn.

I Love You

I bought a set of 5 clear plastic cups for $1 and decided to fill them with my old ribbon cardboard reels.

When you tear the ends off and wrap them in white cardstock, they make the perfect ice cream to fill the cups.

Ribbon was then glued around the top edge and crinkles of brown grocery sack added for the "fudge or chocolate" element.

12 hand made roses were then glued on for the cool whip, a 1/2 of a straw, a cherry "like" topping added and then a love you tag with yarn bow and some word blocks for sentiment and that's that. I also added some alternating strips of Washi tape to outside of the glass for decoration too.

Super light to hang from a tree and I think super cute and fun!

 Oodles

 Sweetheart

 Tons

This sundae had a mishap. As I was pushing the ribbon reel down in, I pressed too hard and broke off the stand so I flipped it upside down and created this variation instead.  For those of you Dr.Who fans out there, I rather think it looks like a Valentine Dalek.

More

Maybe there's a few ideas in here to inspire you to make your own Valentine ornaments.

Hope you've enjoyed your visits and I thank you so much for coming by to check out this post. 

 Have a wonderful day!!

Hugs n' Happy Crafting,

Lisa x

Hugs again,

Ornament #1 - Vintage Crochet Heart Ornament

Ornament #2 - Rosette Silhouette Ornament

Ornament #3 - Shadowbox Ornament

Ornament #4 - Birdhouse Ornament

Birdhouse Valentine Ornament #4

Happy Monday!

I accomplished nothing that I had to do, but boy did I procrastinate like a champ and had fun crafting instead.

Here is my Valentine ornament #4 in a set of 8....little birdhouses.

I began with black cardstock and cut 4 houses out and then painted them in white acrylic paint.

Once the acrylic dried, I coated them with crackle.

While the crackle dried, I thought it would be fun to recreate a metal roof for a couple of them so this how I did that.

I used a piece of metal tape that I cut to fit the roof, folder embossed a design and then inked it with Adirondak inks.

Once the ink was dry, I painted on a light wisp of white paint and then filed it off in places for the very old and weathered look.

Birdhouses need little eggs and I didn't have any so I created hot glue dots and then gave the dots a coat of white paint. Once the white was dry a light splatter of baby blue ink added as well. 

 Viola, baby bird eggs.

  Hand rolled roses, little banner cut from the Silhouette machine, a little bit of moss from the Dollar Store and those fabulous pink gems from my blog buddy Mitra; THANK YOU!!  

They look so perfect on these houses.

There are little holes on the top of the roofs so that these can hang from lights and illuminate through the little door and windows...so cute!

Thank you so much for all the very sweet comments of encouragement and thank you so much for stopping by.

Hugs n' Happy Crafting,

Lisa x

Shadowbox Ornaments #3

Hello again!

Still on my mission to fill the bare limbs of my once Christmas tree, as it transforms into our family Valentine tree, and I'm back with the third of eight ornament designs.

Here's a couple pictures I took to explain how I made them.

Each starts with a heart box cut from a cutting machine and then a cut heart flourish type frame placed on top.

5 more Valentine shadow boxes ready to get started.

I had the cutting machine cut out several trees, fences and keys to decorate.  I also printed out and fussy cut several vintage Valentine images.

 

Here's 

Headed to Lover's Lane ;)

You're Hot!

You're a Dear

I Love You!

 Puppy Love

and lastly...

Squeeze Me!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thanks so much for the visit.

I'm off to finish up my house chores and then watch more Dexter. Good grief, that show is addictive!!

Hugs n' Happy crafting,

Lisa x

Ornament #1 - Vintage Crochet Heart

Ornament #2 - Rosette Silhouette

Rosette Silhouette Valentine Ornament #2

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue,

 but a black silhouette

really says,  "I LOVE YOU!"

As promised, here is the second idea in a set of 8 ornaments for Valentines Day to either use to decorate a tree or to embellish a gift, or whatever your heart desires.

Using the Cameo Silhouette cutting machine, I cut out border strips to form the rosette. 

Second, I cut out doilies to support the rosette.
Thirdly, cut out lovey dovey silhouettes to showcase.
Lastly, an assortment of embellishments like feathers and petals and handmade rolled roses to accompany it all. 






  Each rosette had a pile that looked  

         like this for assembling.  

Inked doily supporting the rosette.

Young Love

Cupid with Arrow

Dancing Couple

 Elegant Couple                                 Cupid with Heart

Kissing Couple

Well that's the second design and I'll be back with the 3rd of 8 very soon.

Thank you so much for visiting me and I hope you're having a crafty day wherever you are!

Hugs n' Happy Inking...

Lisa x

Ornament #1 - Vintage Crochet Heart Ornament