Vintage Valentine

So tomorrow is Valentines Day and perhaps, like me, you are spending a little time today making a card for that special someone?

This year I decided to go all vintage and use pages from an old poetry book to alter a big heart shaped box and make a card. The box I made for my hubby is actually in the DT gallery (spoiled the surprise for him somewhat!). You could also decorate a small box, just big enough for one little chocolate heart – that’s what I’ve shown below…

To make my box and card I started with a plain box and kraft card and glued on torn strips from pages of poetry.

I then painted over this with a metallic glaze so that the text would still show through (Ranger’s dimensional pearls are good for this).

Then I made the flowers and leaves to go on top…

At our January crop in Kirckaldy (Fife, Scotland) we were treated to a fab class by friend of mine, and fantastically talented scrapper Vicki Canning. She taught us a LO using the stripped down cardboard from a pizza box.

The LO was great but my favourite part was the technique for making these great 3D flowers. Thanks Vicki for giving me permission to share them here.

Cut several different sized circles from double sided paper (I’ve used October Afternoon and Basic Grey ‘Nook and Pantry’).

Dampen the circles then crumple them up ramdomly. Next uncrumple and then reshape by holding the circles at the centre to form the petals of your flower (see picture as this is hard to explain!!).

Hold the circles like this while you dry them with a heat gun. Then layer up the flowers with the smallest circle in the middle. I used glossy accents to glue them but any adhesive will do.

I used a similar technique to make some crumpled leaves which I just cut freehand.

I glued two leaves and a flower on top of the box and the others to the front of my card. (If you’re posting the card though you’ll need to flatten down the flower a bit). I then distressed the box a little with some vintage photo distress ink and added a little sparkle on the leaves with some Stickles. On the card I filled the centre of the flower with glossy accents then sprinkled in some red beads.

The thing I like about these flowers is that they’re so quick and easy to make and could be used for a range of purposes. I’ll be getting the 9 year olds in my craft club at school to make them to decorate gift boxes for mothers day – I’m sure their mums will love them.