Valentine's Day Cards

Beautiful cards and Valentine's Day just seem to go hand in hand, so I decided to experiment in making some of my own cards.  I don't think I've made a card since 6th grade, lol! 

Since I've been dealing with several fibro flares and a whole lot of fibro fog and exhaustion, the cards turned out to be the perfect project.  One that I could pick up and put down how ever often was needed and allowed me to work in small increments.

I decided to use paper piecing in designing my cards.  I began by experimenting with drawings and templates and the templates were the most frustrating part of the process!  I found myself wondering if I was wasting my time; doubting whether the templates would work.  Do you ever experience a certain level of doubt when trying something new?

My daughter stopped by to visit about the time that the templates were completed, and she sat down with the templates and a selection of scrapbooking papers and glue.  I absolutely loved the results - which you can see here:

I was totally encouraged by her results, so I moved on to actually creating the cards.  I used two different designs - a cute little owl and a segmented, layered heart - and these were some of my results:

If you'd like to try your hand at card making, I'm including the templates for you.  Left click on the photo and choose 'print' and the template should print up full size.  I recommend printing on card stock.  If you have trouble printing the template, I can send it to you as an attachment if you provide your email address.

The templates are hand drawn, so there will be slight imperfections.  Don't let that worry you!  Any imperfections simply add to the charm and originality of your work.  The only place where acurracy really counts is in that cut down the center of the hearts.

I recommend cutting out multiples of each piece so that you can play with color combinations.  For the heart, each piece (with the exception of the largest heart) is cut in half and the pieces are combined for contrast.  The backgrounds are up to you.  I used either scrapbooking paper, mulberry paper or glitter paints, but go with your own imagination!

Feel free to reduce or enlarge the templates to use in ATC's, collage, etc.  The only thing I ask is that you give credit and/or link back to this post if you publish your work on the internet.  It would be wonderful, too, if you share a link to your results here in the comment section.  I'd love to see what you do with my templates!

Now, to decide who to send the cards too...