One hundred valentines

Last year our local Meals on Wheels organization collected valentines that they delivered to clients with their meals. I made a small batch of valentines last year, and I wanted to participate in the project again this year. When I e-mailed the organization's volunteer coordinator I found out that the deadline to submit cards was Feb. 2, which only gave me about a week to work. I decided to make that my weekend project, and I set a lofty, but achievable, goal of making one hundred valentines.

I started working on Friday, and everything was going pretty smoothly. I thought I was on track to finish the cards on Sunday night or Monday afternoon. Then a wrench was thrown into my plans. On early Sunday afternoon I went out to salt the icy sidewalk, and on my second step out the door I slipped and fell on the stairs. Hard. I didn't have any outward bumps or bruises, but my back was extremely unhappy. I ended up hobbling around and spending a lot of time lying on the couch with a heating pad.

Needless to say, my card-making was hampered since I couldn't sit for very long and needed to take frequent breaks. But I kept plugging away, and I finished all one hundred cards by late Tuesday afternoon. I made mostly 4" x 4" cards because I was able to get four card bases from one piece of 12" x 12" card stock, and I used the leftover 4" x 4" square from each piece for punching out shapes or making layers.

Here are all the finished cards:

As you can see, some of the cards were stamped, and some of them were made with just punches and paper. I kept them all fairly simple without too much embellishment. Below are close-up pictures of most of the cards (I few of the designs I've already shared), but I didn't keep track of the supplies I used for each card. If you have questions about a particular design, leave a comment below and I'll respond as soon as I can.

I stamped "Happy Valentines Day" inside both of these card designs. I also wrote a brief note and signed all one hundred of the cards.

Inside the teacups card I stamped "Happy Valentine's Day."  The inside of the cat card says "You're the cats meow."

I stamped "You're treemendous" inside the tree card and "Up in the air over you" inside the card with hot air balloons.

Inside these cards I stamped "Happy heart day."

Inside the hedgehog card I stamped "Happy Valentine's Day" and wrote a note about sending "hedgehugs." In the whale card I stamped "Happy heart day" and wrote "Whale you be my valentine?"

The rest of the cards are made with patterned paper, punches and a few embellishments. Inside the cards I stamped either "Happy Valentine's Day" or "Happy heart day."

You can't really tell in this photo, but the cupcakes on this paper are covered with a glittery gloss, and they sparkle in the light. I've been saving this piece of paper for years because it's so pretty, but I decided this was the perfect way to use it.

Inside these cupcake cards I wrote a note wishing the recipient a sweet day.

These are some of the simplest card designs, but I actually really like them. I think they're perfect for Valentine's Day. And they remind me of the old Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the others ..."

I used four punched hearts again for the card in the front of this photo. But instead of arranging them in a square, I glued them down with the point of each heart in the center of the card base, so they make a flower or clover shape.

This was the last bunch of valentines I made, and I was starting to lose a little steam. So I used strips of coordinating patterned paper, ribbon and punched hearts to make these sixteen cards.

I love being able to share my cards, and I hope they bring a little sunshine to the recipients.




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