It’s been a bit quiet on the blog lately as I have been working on things I can’t yet share! But I found time today to create a card inspired by a couple of design challenges.

The Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #278 has the theme of ‘Holiday’, so I decided I would do a valentines day card. I incorporated it with Inspire.Create challenge #011 as the challenge this week was a sketch. I love sketch challenges as I feel they do a lot of the thinking for me.

Although I had Valentines Day in mind when I put this card together, it could be used for an anniversary card, a wedding card or even a birthday card for your significant other.

The card base is real red, and I have used a whisper white mat leaving only a small border. The paper used comes from a retired Stampin’ Up paper stack called Sending Love. I love this paper, and I’m really not a lovey-dovey person, but I do love the colour red! I actually used a lot of this paper on christmas cards last year as although one side is ‘love’ themed, the other side is just red / white patterns.

On top of the paper I layered a 2.5″ circle in real red. The branch that the owls are sitting on is actually from the Colourful Seasons stamp set. I stamped it onto basic black card and then fussy cut it out. You can’t really see the stamped image, but I used it as a guide when cutting. The owl images and tiny hearts are both from the owl punch – this punch is retired but I love it – it can be used to make so many cute things – check out some of the other things I have made using it here. I have actually used the owls with hearts before on another card – I think they make a very cute card.

The sentiment ‘celebrate’ comes from the Sale-A-Bration stamp set ‘Amazing You’ – this set can be early for free up until the end of March when you make a purchase of $90 or more. All details on Sale-A-Bration can be found here. When you’re ready to go shopping click on ‘Shop Online’ above.