Love Is All Around

We're rapidly approaching that special day when couples can openly celebrate their love for each other without fear of getting embarrassed .... awwwww bless!
Many of the blog challenges have adopted a Love Theme and encouraged us to get out the hearts and flowers this week.   I've taken advantage of this opportunity to enter several challenges with one card - something I usually struggle to do.
Last weekend, I was rather naughty ... slap ... slap ... and treated myself to the new Papermania Honey and Hugs collection so decided to use the cute owl character for my card.

It isn't necessarily a Valentine card - it could work equally well for an Anniversary or even a loved one's birthday ... at a push.
The sentiment is made up partly from alphabet stickers and partly from a wood mounted Penny Black stamp. 
I inked the words separately with a Promarker ... held my breath and hoped I'd judged the placement correctly so that the words would sit on either side of the owls feet.  Almost perfect ... but not quite.  This is a situation where clear stamps have a definite advantage over wooden ones.
The large owl was cut from a different sheet of the Honey and Hugs paper and then mounted on foam pads to brown cardstock which had been cut with a decorative trimmer blade. 
A strip of the leftovers came in handy for a perch - this was the point when I had the bright idea to split the sentiment into sections rather than stamp it the easy way.  Then I finished off with a some punched hearts for the trees - well you've got to have hearts somewhere haven't you?  
Here's the list of challenges that I think this card qualifies for ... you should pop along and join in with them too!
My Graphico ... Brown, Olive Green and Pink
Dutch Dare Challenge ... Valentines
Lots To Do ... Love Is In The Air
Daring Cardmakers ... Have a Heart
Simon says Stamp ... Love
Cute Card Thursday ... In the Name of Love
Pollycraft Monday ... Things with Wings
Lili of the Valley ... Valentines
Creative Card Crew ... Valentines

Anniversary Love

My brother and his wife celebrate their 14th Anniversary later this month and I wanted to make them a card that was romantic but not too mushy ... if you know what I mean.
I think I've managed to achieve that with this card by using this beautiful double sided cardstock from Imaginisce.
I really love the softness of these colours together and the lovely flowing lines just cried out to be cut around, giving me fabby top and bottom panels for the front and also providing an interesting panel for the message inside.
The pink centre panel cardstock was embossed on the Cuttlebug using my favourite Swiss Dots folder and pale blue ribbon was threaded through slits in an acetate greeting and secured behind with tape before attaching it to the DL blank.
A couple of Prima flowers with liquid pearl centres add some decoration.
The small silver peel off letters on the heart are their first name initials and I hope that I haven't made them so small that they will be missed. Various different sizes of letters, both peel off and chipboard, were hauled out of my stash, but these were the only ones which didn't overpower the paper too much.

The inclusion of embossing and initials on my card will hopefully mean I can enter it for both of the challenges at Bubbly Scrumptious ... their usual monthly challenge and their new weekly challenge ... IF that's allowed of course!
No doubt someone will tell me if it's not.

Awards ... Love ... and Thanks

I have been the lucky recipient of some more bloggy awards which is always a privilege and a constant surprise as I have a notorious reputation for not passing them on.

Huge thanks to Ann and Tasha for these recent additions to my collection.

I'm trying very hard to be a good girl and still continuing to use up magazine freebies so here's some more 'free' cards.

Everything including the cardblanks were magazine free gifts.

Can you spot the subtle difference between them?

My final offering shows a card I made using some of the Paper Cellar goodies which arrived yesterday.

The Spring papers are really bright and absolutely guaranteed to cheer up a grey day ... and don't you just love the funky shape of these alphabet stickies?