BFF Open House Link Party Wrap Up and Features: Valentine-a-palooza

So many cute ideas shared at Friday's party. Clearly people are in LOVE with Valentine's Day and are well prepared to celebrate it this week. Let's have a look:

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Tonna from USS Crafty shared this adorable Valentine's wreath made from Dollar Tree and Michael's supplies. Low cost, high impact. 

Teri from A Creative Princess shared how she not only embellished washers ( cute on their own) but grouped them together to make a heart shaped washer necklace. LOVE!

Denyse from Glitter Glue and Paint raided her scraps and whipped up these sweet Valentine's candles. 

Sarah, from Sarah's SaturDIY share here "Owl-entine's " bunting along with her adorable Valentine's vignette. 

And Caroline from cw frosting shared how to easily transform your throw pillows into Valentine's decor with an easy no-sew technique. 

Of course, it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without chocolate. Here are some delicious chocolate ideas you could whip up for your someone special. 

Karyn at Pint Sized Baker shared these yummy chocolate strawberry hearts. You might pop over to check out her giveaway too!

Your family will love you ( even more than they do already ) if you whip up a batch of these Reeses's Brownies from Jovana at Taste of August.

You could start Jovana's brownies with these homemade Peanut Butter Cups from Shauna at The Best Blog Recipes, or you could just make some of these to give your sweetheart.  And to round out the trifecta of Peanut Butter chocolatey goodness:

Peanutbutter and Chocolate Pretzels from Amy at Ameroonie Designs. I am in love with that sweet paper rose in her picture too!

Happy Valentine's Week sweet readers. 

Valentine's Photo Props and Treats

I knew I wanted to send College Boy some goodies for Valentine’s Day and when I saw these lips and mustache photo props by Amy at Living Locurto , I knew exactly what to do. 

I started by downloading the files for the photo props here. Then cut them out and adhered them to  bamboo skewers. These were great but I thought they needed a holder.

I grabbed an empty tea tin and covered it with scrapbook paper and coordinating washi tape.

I had some film strip rub-ons in my stash so I applied those and then used up some alphabet stickers I had on hand to spell out “Photo Props”

Finished it up with some metal self adhesive brads.

I figured he and his friends could have some fun posing for silly pictures. This is exactly the kind of thing he and his friens like to do and they mostly hang out as a group. But that was only part of the treats for the goodie box .

I picked up some chevron print paper bags and had some heart themed washi tape from when I couldn’t resist a “buy all” option at Pick Your Plum when they had washi tape on special.  In keeping with the mustache theme, I made an image in PicMonkey that I sized to 2.5 x 2.5 and put on each of the bags.

If you don’t get my brand of humor, it translates to : “I mustache you to”.... Feel free to use if you like.

Of course the bags are filled with assorted chocolate hearts, Reeses, Nestle Crunch, Butterfinger ( I didn’t even eat any!) Laffy Taffy, and some Valentine’s themed temporary tattoos.

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Valentine's Treats for College Kids

I used to love doing treats for class parties etc. when my son was in Elementary school.

Middle and High School provided fewer opportunities but surprisingly, College has brought them back!

I think it’s because he and a lot of his dorm group are away from home and it’s fun to receive things in the mail, but also now that they’re actually older, they don’t have to pretend like this stuff is just too “kiddie” for them.

I decided to go with a turquoise and red color combo. Still not totally traditional for Valentine’s Day and incorporates a current color combo trend.

The tags for the goodie bags were made from a printable I created using My Memories Suite digital software. I resized the image and then trimmed the corners into a tag shape.

I bought several different candies…Nerds, Smarties, Reeses Hearts, Hershey’s Hugs and Kisses etc. Oh darn...there may be extras!

I changed the printable size and used it on a card I made for my son, and also made him a special grab bag. I thought I had some bigger clear bags ( I can be a little OCD about everything coordinating!) but didn’t, so improvised with a brown paper lunch bag:

Embellised with misc. stickers from my stash and tied all of the bags with red and turquoise bakers twine ( Twinery).

Sharing the printable here :

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My Sunny (Yellow) Valentine

One of the most popular trends right now is the color combination of gray and yellow. I know neither of these colors is normally associated with Valentine’s Day but I decided, why shouldn’t they be?!

I have the DCWV Lemon Flower Stack ( LOVE this paper!)  and chose a couple of complementary patterns to use on these cards. Cut panels from the black and gray sheets and then used scraps of one with the other, and finished off the panels with silver glittered ribbon.

For the focal point of the card, I used a G Studio $1 clear “LOVE” stamp (Michaels)  and Fresh Ink pigment ink in mango. Layered that on a scrap of the DCWV paper, and then on a scrap of silver glitter paper.

I stamped the swirl heart (from Inkadinkado’s Hearts collection #97637) and cut out. Added a couple of hearts punched from more silver glitter scraps.

I love Stickles and the patterns on this paper gave me an excuse to dot iridescent Stickles everywhere!

By now, friends and family who receive cards from me understand they never know what they’re going to get. Sometimes very traditional colors; other times…..

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Valentine's In Gray and White

For the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed making non-traditional color Valentine’s cards. I went through this phase with Christmas décor so I guess my muse just moved ahead on the calendar!

This year I am playing with a palette of gray and white with accents of black and silver. Maybe it has something to do with being covered in snow and ice right now!

I used white cardstock for the card and Core’dinations textured paper (Stormy Gray), dry embossed using Tim Holtz “Floral and Fancy Frames” texture fade embossing folders.  The patterned strip on the bottom is Deja Views Sweet Romance Gray Damask.

The “LOVE” focal was computer generated using My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software, sized (2.5 x 3 ) and then mounted on black and glittered silver cardstock. Finished with hearts punched from more of the damask paper, black and white baker’s twine, a silver heart brad, adhesive rhinestones and pearls.

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Banner Love

Or, Love Banner…po-tay-to po-tah-to. In keeping with my chocolate Valentine’s theme, I made a new banner to go on my fireplace :

I  started with a chipboard book that I picked up after Christmas at Michaels for $.60. Yep. That’s right $.60. OK it started out at $1 from the dollar bin, but still…$.60:

I covered four of the hearts with scrapbook paper :

and added a torn strip of a coordinating paper down the middle. Then I cut out medallions in coordinating papers using my Cricut Expression and ran the larger solid one through the Cuttlebug for texture:

Cut the letters LOVE using the Jasmine alphabet cart and put those in the center of each heart. Never content to leave things simple , I added silver foil stickers (I’ve used Magenta peel offs before but these are from Elizabeth Craft Designs…I found these at Ben Franklin) and of course I had to add some bling so I added some rhinestone and pearlized self adhesive strips.

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