Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi All! IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY!!!! WOO HOO!!! It's also Snow Day Part II--for that, I'm not nearly as excited…. The kids, on the other hand, are completely stoked!

For our last Valentine's Countdown project, I thought I'd share the Valentines I made for my kids. The first thing you have to understand is that bacon and macaroni & cheese rank among the top 5 loves of their lives. The other thing you must understand is that my teen and tween are willing to put up with a lot from their quirky mom. (For that, I'm truly grateful.)

So we start with my teen son, who is pretty sure that EVERYTHING is better with bacon:

While rummaging through the craft room, I found two 3x5 inch canvases. These were perfect for little Valentine mixed media pieces. (I added a matchbook to the back so that I could write a note.) For my son's canvas, I used a chevron stencil and some Mr. Huey's Leaf Green color mist to give it some color. I used my heat gun to dry it and then used Mod Podge to attach some tissue paper hearts for more texture. I also used Mod Podge on the back of the photo to adhere it to the canvas. (I have an ink jet printer so I'm not sure what would have happened if I had used the Mod Podge on the front. I have a ton of letter and word stickers in my stash, so I used those for the sentiment. (The colorful letters are from Simple Stories and the words are from Authentique.) I added some wooden elements that I colored with Sunset Exclusive Ink and more Mr Huey, and a little corrugated star and metal piece from my stash. I adhered the star and wood pieces with Liquid Glass. I then used some grey velvet ribbon to finish off the edges since this won't be framed.

Now let's take a look at my tween daughter, whose standard order ANYWHERE is mac & cheese:

For her canvas I used Lagoon Exclusive Ink re-inker and water in a spray pen and a floral butterfly stencil for the background. I sponged a little Cotton Candy Exclusive Ink around the edges and added some rub-ons from my stash. I went over the whole thing with Mod Podge, which activated the ink and gave it a tie-died look. (To do this you want to dab on the Mod Podge instead of brushing it. If you use brush strokes, you blend everything together and lose your pattern.) I also added some tissue hearts at this point. I then adhered the picture to the canvas and added the sentiment. I dip-died a paper butterfly in Lagoon and added it to the canvas (after it was dry, of course) with Liquid glass (which I also used to add the other embellishments). The paper flower, wooden heart (inked in Hollyhock Exclusive Ink), and bling are from my stash.

Here's a look at the canvases side by side:

So that wraps up our Valentine's Countdown! I hope you enjoyed it and have been inspire to create something fun along the way. Thanks so much for joining me!

Stay tuned for the Kraft-y Hearts Blog Share that is coming your way February 16 & 17. We'll be featuring some fun favorites from the new Close To My Heart Spring/Summer 2014 Idea Book. You don't want to miss it!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!