sparklythings

I love me some Valentine’s Day and I’m very excited it’s almost here. You know my rule – Valentine’s Day works just like Christmas: it’s not about how much you get, it’s about what you give. Hate the horrible commercialization? Do something about it. Personally, I am very pro- a holiday that’s all reds and pinks and hearts and lurrrrve!

I did two Valentine’s projects with something I really luuurve, the ol’ Cricut.

These were mailed out to very special Surface To Air Media fan club members in perfect little blue envelopes. (I adore  the red-pink-blue combo for Valentine’s!)

Inspired by papercutting artists such as Julene Harrison – but lacking the amazing talent – I cheated with the machine. (It’s hard to tell in the picture but the letters are negative space.) My original design said “Happy Valentine’s Day” but that was a bit too detailed for the Cricut to do in a 3.5″ x 5″ space. Laid out in photoshop using the fonts Campanile and Hearts for 3D, then imported into Sure Cuts a Lot.

The second project was for work. I knew I wanted to hand out cinnamon hearts somehow…but I couldn’t find them  ANYWHERE. I ended up using Hot Tamales which are quite tasty, too. (Good thing I bought extra!)

I started on these late so I had to find containers locally, not online. The plastic hearts are actually from the wedding area of Dollar Tree, not the seasonal section. The flame motif came to me after I bought the containers but worked really well with the hot cinnamon candy.

I modified characters from the pyrobats font because if I drew my own flames I would have spent the entire time tweaking them instead of actually cutting them. Of course, cutting these only took about 5 minutes total with the machine (amazing!) so I was free to spend my time gluing them and popping Hot Tamales.

Bonus: because they were el cheapos the heart pieces fit together a little too loosely, but closing the paper tab  inside the lids made for a perfectly tight seal. I’m pleased with how they turned out!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 12:32 am and is filed under cards, crafting, holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.