Valentine for Troy 2010!

HOORAY! It's finally here! I finished the Valentine for Troy. Since his girlfriend is not on my contact list I'm going to go ahead and post the picutres of the finished tags before the big day. Hopefully she won't stumble across this and ruin the surprise! (what are the chances???)



As usual this project went through several stages before ending up with the final product. The task: create 20 tags which will be suspended in the air by helium balloons. On one side, a decorative element, on the other, a custom quote about... you guessed it... Love. How sweet! Troy of course came up with the theme "Love is in the air" and I designed the tag element.

Of course no project is complete without starting off purchasing some expensive toy I simply have to have! This time it was some oval shaped dies from Nestabilities. Yes, I have a Cricut, I know... but it's really hard to get the scallops exactly right... this was much easier. So off to my favorite art supply store for that. I also picked up some pre-made tags to make my life a little easier.

Next I went to Paper Zone and picked up some sparkly red paper, white cardstock and some brown paper that matched the brown of the tags. The trick was... how to get the quotes printed on the pre-made tags? I thought at first I would print them onto the brown paper and then cut that out and paste it onto the tag, but I ended up deciding to use clear avery address labels instead! They are not seemless but they did not look too bad at the end of the day so I was OK with that.

Then I ran into another challenge getting the phrase "love is in the air" onto the red oval on the front of the tag. I tried using the clear labels again but I really was not happy with the way the tag showed up. I finally decided to just stamp the word love on the front using a .99 stamp set I picked up somewhere. Conveniently the font was similar enough to the font I used on the back to work!

Now I had to adhere the oval onto the tag. I didn't like the big blank space so I used a swirl background stamp with white Brilliance stamp pad and I liked the effect. Finally I switched the orientation of the oval... since the tags will be hanging that way I thought it made more sense and it was more asthetically pleasing too. :-) So if you want to know why it takes me 4 weeks to finish a project... now you know! (and it's a good thing that my boss doesn't mind that I glue things together at my desk or it would take 6 weeks!)

Here they are!



There are 20 of them



And on the backside are the quotes!



What do you think?

Valentine for Troy

DSC07551.JPG, originally uploaded by EKKhan.

Here is a link to the picture that derailed me last February.

Part of the reason I'm "back on track" is because my friend has commissioned another Valentine's card... that and I got some fun toys for my Cricut for Christmas. :-)

This project was shamefully scraplifted from Sharon Johnson (http://notimetostamp.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/) Of course hers is better... I thought this turned out pretty nice.

The back side of this are little pockets and each pocket holds a ticket for some special treat. Troy is very creative in coming up with these so each one starts with the letter it corresponds to. It was really fun! This was his coupon list:

M - Mr. Belvedere - This card entitles you to a day free of doing any chore
Y - You Win - This card entitles you to win a argument no questions ask.
V - Valentine Part 2 - This card entitles you to celebrate Valentine's Day again on any given day.
A - A Good Day - This card entitles you to not dealing with any issues/drama of any kind today.
L - Little Wishes - This card entitles you to 3 little wishes within reason on this day.
E - Entertain Me - This card entitles you to pick any movie you want to see, no questions asked.
N - Night Night - This card entitles you to a 20 minute massage and a night cap served to you before bed.
T - Tasty Tasty - This card entitles you to a breakfast/brunch/lunch/dinner at your favorite restaurant.
I - Interesting - This card entitles you to focus a day on whatever strikes your interest.
N - No Rush - This card entitles you to 2 hours of unrushed shopping
E - Eat and Run - This card entitles you to a romantic night @ home with take from your favorite SF restaurant.

Starting Over... again. :-)

Hi all! Happy new year!

I can't believe how the last year has flown by. It's been eventful, that's for sure!

For those of you who didn't get the original post, my new year's resolution last year was to make 500 cards in 2009 and blog each one. Of course as you can tell, I made 3 and then the train was permanently derailed.

For starters, I received a commission to make a Valentine's day "card" from a friend of mine for his girlfriend. At the time I was working 9-10 hour days and simultaneously trying to be a good wife and mother while cramming in the crafting. I did manage to get the Valentine's card done on time and mailed off to my friend in San Francisco... but the stress of it kind of took the wind out of my sails for a while.

I might have started back in at some point but then... in August... my husband of 5 years announced that he wanted a divorce and he moved out. I spent the next few months pulling myself back together and moving myself and my daughter into a new apartment since the house we shared as a family we were not able to keep.

Fortunately I was able to use this as an opportunity for personal growth... (HAHAHA) and now that the holidays are over, I'm feeling good and ready to start creating again! The apartment we moved into had a beautiful HUGE master bedroom... which my daughter and I decided would be better served as a "girls toy room" rather than a bedroom... so I now have a large craft area. And since most of my craft stuff is still in boxes it isn't too crowded with junk to work yet! :-)

I'll try to get "crafty" and have something new to show you soon!