Valentines for the grandchildren

This is what happens when you have 12 grandchildren!!!

I love using home made washi tape on envelopes.

The Valentines themselves are made from "shaving cream prints" that come out looking a lot like marbling.  Very fun.  You can do it with watercolor, food coloring, or fluid acrylics.  I used mostly pinks, purples, and red.  I added some stencil work with acrylic paint, some glitter,  and some cute plastic stickers from Michaels.  
Inside I embossed "Happy Valentines Day". 

My grands range from 11 to 26 and so there's quite a range.  
Miss them all.  Abby (17) is having heart ablation surgery on Feb 2.  Everyone is holding her close to our hearts in a whole new way right now.  She has sinus ventricular tachycardia.  This is her second ablation.  Tough for someone so young!!!  But she has fantastic doctors.  We are trying not to worry.

Exploding Valentine

It's lots of fun folding an "exploding" card.
And if you don't have time for using it for Valentine's it'll work for any occasion, of course.  I used stamps like the gal did in the explanation but you can, of course, do ANYTHING on an exploding card!  I am already figuring out how to do a Gelli plate design and masking the center for the message.  The steps are at:

http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2015/02/valentines-day-explosion-card.html

Diva Challenge: Athitzi

What's fascinating about Athitzi is that there is absolutely nothing to it and yet is spectacular.  It's all in the shading, of course.
It's just lines…lots of little lines or long lines as you wish.

It would, you think, take a lot of time but if you keep the size reasonable, not really.  The examples given in the challenge were layered..so like another shape behind this one with more shading.
Fun fun fun.  Nice illusion.  Lots of creative opportunity.

Valentines in the making

I know it's 14 days away…but all mine have to be mailed and I have 12 grandkids!  Two of the valentines are made of hand painted washi tape and the others are all made of Gelli plate print papers torn and glued together.  It's would be pretty hard to tell the difference.  I'll glue the valentines in place and then do some tangling on the card too.

If you only count 11 it's because one grandson is in the state of  Washington in Americorps and he got jellybeans in stead!  You have to join Americorps to get jellybeans.  :-)  

Last Valentine

Vortex, W2, Wobbles and Warts, Knightsbridge

Card sized (4 x 6) again. A little Rose watercolor. Voila. The last of the 12 grandchildren's Valentines.  Now off to bake the cookies.  

I got the idea for intertwining the hearts from Open Seeds. click here.   She does a great job of explaing it.  For my hubby I will also bake his favorite pie (pecan).   

Tomorrow Lian Zhen (the famous watercolorist) is coming to do a demo at our park here in Florida.  We are SO excited.  I took a class from him about a year ago and when we discovered he was in central Florida I contacted him about coming.  He was so nice to say yes!!!  We do not have a huge amount to pay demo artists!  Especially of his caliber.  So very very special to have him.  

I hope to post a few photos from his demo tomorrow or in a few days!  

30 Day Challenge Day 28: Outside the Box

When you have 12 grandchildren you HAVE to get on the stick and get going!  Trying for some "outside the box" Valentine approaches this year.  Watercolor applied to Strathmore greeting cards and then tangled.

30 Day Challenge Day 17: Valentines

Gingham, Rosé, Heart-rope, Crescent Moon, Poke root (variation) Striping, Laces

This is a directly creative plagiarism of Margaret Bremner's Valentines in her blog post.  Click here for that.  She is so amazing, of course.

I did try out the tangle called Rosé for the first time as I had not used that tangle before.  But I added Heart-rope myself  and re-arranged things differently. Still, it was her inspiration.  AND it is time to start thinking Valentines too!  I did this on a 5 x 7" note card from Cheap Joe's Goof Proof Card set.  

Margaret used red Micron pens in her tangles.  Since I do not have any red pens...my red was added with Inktense WC pencils and then I used a tiny watercolor brush to wet the color and make it permanent.  The cool thing about Inktense is that the  wc pencil turns into a sort of acrylic when you wet it. Completely permanent.   

Believe me I won't spend this amount of time on all my Valentines!!!!  This one is special for my hubby.  But I am inspired to try some simpler ones now for the grandchildren!