My Little Valentine

I made this card for the Craft-Dee BowZ monthly challenge. I LOVE being on this team. I mean, if there is a team better suited for me, I've yet to see one.  The challenge this month is ANYTHING GOES AND INCLUDE A HANDMADE BOW. I love this little image by A Random Fan. I thought this was the perfect Valentine image due to the heart 'steam' on her hot chocolate, the heart tag on the dog, and the hearts on her blanket, oh and the heart background paper, too.

 I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the circle around my image and also the beautiful Whimsy double scallop doily die that I've had since 2013. I also added a La-La Land diecut in the bottom left corner which reminds me of a butterfly. The sentiment is by Whimsy and I used 2 different circle punches. My paper is by American Crafters. The white ribbon is from Craft-Dee Bowz and the white embroidered lace and the green lace are from my stash. I love the layered look of the ribbons and lace.

You can see the 5 beautiful Prima cut green iridescent jewels nice here. Often photos don't show the true color, the glitter, the shine...but these 5 jewels photographed beautifully and this is how they actually look in person! I've saved these for over 3 years in my stash of supplies. I have such a hard time using beautiful embellishments and papers, and why is that? I mean, who will ever enjoy them if I don't use them? Who follows in my footsteps?

You can also see my flower arrangement and the gorgeous orchid smack dab in the middle of it. My flowers are all from Wild Orchid Crafts and the orchid came to me as a Christmas present. I also have them in purple, but this pink one was perfect to use here. I added a dab of glitter on the petals of each flower for extra shine. I used a Martha Stewart punch for the leaves. The tip I'd like to share about this card is to use a paper you have already used on the card for the leaves. Because the paper you punch for your leaves is the same that you've used on the base of the card, you're not introducing another paper or color, so the eye isn't drawn to the leaves, but only notices them as part of the flower arrangement.

And as for my image...there is a reason the dog is colored the way he is. This is what my new baby beagle, Linus, looks like. He's all caramel and cream color, no black, no brown...he's called a Lemon Beagle. I've posted Linus' picture with my traditional colored beagle, Lucy, up on the right side of my blog. He is an adorable beagle who is currently going through his doggie two's which means we are working on our patience with him and have paper towels and floor/carpet cleaner throughout the 'key' areas, toys scattered throughout the entire house, he likes to play tug with everything and his little teeth leave holes...sigh...but I love him. Darn good thing I do, too, or he'd be tied to the light pole out front with a sign that says FREE.

The three dots in the corner are Pebbles Pink Candy Dots, and again, I love them so I've never used any out of the package! And my bow was made using my Craft-Dee BowZ tool. It is so easy to make perfect bows with this little tool. I made a double bow here and it took all of 30 seconds on the first try. I love bows on my cards and I've always sat and made them by hand. Those days are over since this little bow tool is saving me time and ribbon since I never waste any ribbon 'trying' for a good bow. It comes out great every time. Even the middle of my bow, the knot, is great, but I had this little flower and it matched my corner candy dots so perfect that I couldn't resist gluing it on the center with a tiny piece of ribbon around the knot.

This is a fabulous month to join in the challenge at Craft-Dee Bowz. For one thing, we all make at least one Valentine card for someone, so why not add a bow to it so it meets our challenge of  ANYTHING GOES AND INCLUDE A HANDMADE BOW!  I'd love to see you enter this challenge and wish each of you the best of luck in the drawing!

                                                                        Hugs,
                                                                        Gail  

This card is entered in the following challenges:
Crafty Boots, Not Just Cards, Penny's Challenges, Scrap-Creations (fav embellishment: flowers), Crafting for All Seasons, Top Tip Tuesday (TIP), Tuesday Throwdown, Craft Your Passion, Through The Craft Room Door, Crafty Creations (new and old listed in my post), Love to Scrap, Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, C.R.A.F.T., Scrap & Craft, Inspiration Destination, 4 Crafty Chicks, Brown Sugar (3 diff embellishments: ribbon, flowers, jewels), Reasonable Ribbon, Bunny Zoe's Crafts, Aud Sentiments, Simple Create Too, Fairytale Challenge, Sister Act Card Challenge, We Do Doobadoo, My Creative Moments, Wonderful Wednesdays, Digitally Sweet, A Gem of a Challenge, Di's Digi Designs, Dragonfly Dreams