If I was a decisive person, I would have picked one DIY project, had fun, sent them out, boom. Done. But that NEVER happens. DIYers, are you with me? I had a bazillion ideas for Valentines this year and narrowed them down. To three. So now, I’m busting my butt to work on and finish them. It’s like I’m doing military crafting. Set regimented blocks of time, revolving between projects, for hours at a time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but jeeeeeeeeez.
With that, let’s dive into this DIY Valentines project! This one involves more steps than my Heart and Arrow Valentines. Pick and choose the pieces that work best for you.
Materials:
- 4-bar flat card and envelopes, Paper Source (I used superfine white cards and beautifully dark and dramatic slate envelopes)
- Note: you’ll need two flat cards to make one card
- Spectacles rubber stamp, Paper Source
- Tiny heart rubber stamp, Impress Cards and Crafts
- Happy Valentine’s Day rubber stamp, Impress Cards and Crafts
- Clear embossing powder (optional), Paper Source
- Heat embossing tool (optional), Paper Source (on sale for 20%)
- Colorbox black ink pad, Paper Source
- Colorbox peony ink pad, Paper Source
- Alphabet rubber stamps or pen or fine-tipped marker, to write “You are Spec-tacular” (or you can use your computer if you don’t feel comfortable writing or stamping the message; it definitely gives it a handmade feel with these options)
- Paper tape or washi tape of your choice (I found paper tape at Paper Source, but see my review of it below. I would recommend washi tape).
Additional Supplies:
- Exacto knife or similar (this one is great)
- Cutting mat
- Double-sided tape or similar adhesive
Basic Idea:
I’m going to warn you now. This has a lot of steps. Not complicated steps, but more than I had anticipated when I had the amazing vision in my head.
- Take a stack of flat cards and stamp your “Happy Valentine’s Day” image in the middle of the card. Set aside; allow time to dry.
- Stamp andemboss the spectacle image onto the flat card. Embossing is not necessary, but in this case, it gives it an extra layer of dimension and texture, and makes it easier to cut the “glass” out of the image.
- New to embossing? Check out this tutorial. Once you try it, you’ll be hooked. You will.
- Once the embossed cards have set, cut the “glass” section out of each image. Why are we doing this, you might ask? Well, my humble opinion is that placing a heart in the middle of the each eye looks too messy. Which is why we’re cutting that section out! It sounds difficult but it only took me about 10 minutes to cut six cards. Not bad. I’m sure you could find a stamp that doesn’t require any cutting at all on Etsy.
- Using your adhesive of choice, adhere one message card to one spectacle card. Take time to make sure the two line up before pressing them together.
- Stamp the tiny heart stamp in the middle of each eye. Let dry.
- Stamp, write, or print “You are Spec-tacular” onto your card. I considered all three options and decided to stamp the message onto each card. I worked assembly-style: I laid them out and stamped all the Y’s, then O’s, then U’s, etc.
Envelopes:
I adore this paper tape from Paper Source:
Something I didn’t realize until I opened the package is that it really IS paper tape. I know, I know, that’s what the package said, but it means that you have to pull a backing off of the paper. Which took some time to do. It was difficult to find the end to pull off, which means there was a delay every time you used it. The curling of the tape was a little cumbersome. I love the designs and color too much to really complain, but just a warning.
- Create a design using the washi/paper tape. I chose to use three strips and cut each one into a banner and adhere them at varying lengths horizontally and vertically.
What do you think? Pretty fun, right? Good stuff.
Check out my other DIY projects including DIY Valentines here!
