Welcome Love

I sized these at about 7inches tall and they ended up almost 2 inches thick.

The tradition of Valentines Day is one of my favorites. It's fun to support my little ones as they trade cards and treats with their classmates and friends. But even more, after New Year's tradition of self examination, it is refreshing to just look outside ourselves and welcome love into our lives!

The solid paper is all Bazzill basics and the print is the DCWV baby girl stack.

It was my goal last year to put up a banner for each holiday or season but since you haven't seen them here you can probably guess that it didn't happen....So, when the idea pepped up to create these 3D letters for Valentines day, I wanted to figure a way to make it into a banner. This super satin ribbon from thepapermart.com was left over from my little princesses party and it was wide enough to support LOVE. :)

It was actually quite easy to put together these letters but I suggest some quiet so that you can think through them before you glue it all down.  Say for instance don't do these while trying to help with homework since yours might end up like my E which has the paper "technically" inside out. LOL.

I actually have only one tip for the construction of the letters. I used my long clear ruler when gluing the side portions of the "O" together. It doesn't have score marks on the flaps where it's glued so in order to be sure they weren't getting wonky, I  laid my ruler down with a few of the flaps turned up. This made it easier for the next piece to line up without going crooked.

The SVG files for this project all came from the SVGcuts.com website and they do a spectacular job with their files, and also customer support by including great instructional videos right on the site.

"Be Mine" was from the 24Valentines collection, and the bird was and extra from the Bunny House Treat Box set. B wanted a bird on it. Finally I made the "rosebud" from part of the file for roses included in the "crush on you" set. It was designed to be a fuller style rose but I was wanting just a bud so just used on portion of the file...I managed to scrounge the leaves from the 3D flowers collection and finished it off with some plain white ribbon. The banner could probably be embellished even, more but I just wanted to keep it simple. And get it done. :)

I hope you all welcome love into your lives this year and have a wonderful Valentines Day!

Not exactly new...

I was recently chatting with a friend who wanted to make some cool accessories for parties like she sees in Etsy, which reminded me of our Valentines this year. G wanted to make her own, so we worked together to find just what she wanted. We came up with some cute tag pocket "cards" with a gift certificate for an ice cream cone, and an easy topper for her to glue on. It was so seriously easy, my three year old joined in to make some for her friends too. Amazingly I didn't blog them, but since it's a handy idea for all occasions I wanted to share anyway.

Instead of learning Photoshop which is an amazing tool that I don't have and have no idea how to use, I found some awesome clipart from Lettering Delights . G  picked out the images she was interested in then I set up a cut file in DS. The packet tag is from Tags Bags Boxes and More and the topper is Just Because Cards.

*edited to make this more understandable...hopefully

After I cut one set of the shape from Just Because Cards on a plain sheet of cardstock, I measured where the cuts ended up on the page.

Then I set up a MSWord document with a table, using the ruler on the side to help line up the borders of the table by adjusting the size of the rows and colums as well as the margins settings.

Then I place the clip art within the box of the table and play around with placement until I get the images right. You can play around with justification and use the space bar to move the clipart around. Be sure to set the tables rows and columns to exact size or it will adjust the size as you add elements.

A table allows you to copy and paste the whole clip art set and keep the spacing of the clipart consistent as you copy it to the next "box." This helps each set of images remain within the fixed border, and it will stay within the cut shape. You can use the leftover piece of cardstock to compare with a printed sheet before cutting to be sure you've aligned everything properly. Place the two pieces of cardstock together and be sure you can see your images wholly within the space left by the cut shape. Then you can place your printed paper on the mat to cut the shape around your printed images.

There is a bit of trial and error, and be sure to select "no borders" before you print!  After you have achieved the placement you'd like, you can print and cut a boatload! I made some of these in green and some pink for my two daughters as well as the Girl Scout troop and also a few neighbors(about 40). Happy Crafting!