Hello crafty readers!   Wow, I can hardly believe my poor blog has been stagnant for close to a year!  The last several months have  been quite an adventure for my family, and blogging fell off the priority list.  I made the decision to begin homeschooling my son at the start of the current school year so that has been a huge change in our home and takes a  lot of my time.  Just before we were slated to begin the school year, I suffered a devastating complication following eye surgery I'd had in the early summer.  As a result, I lost all vision in my left eye and the entire fall season was spent recovering from multiple follow up surgeries.  I'm doing much better now but partial blindness has been quite an adjustment!  

The good news is I have felt more inspired to create since being laid up for so many months and I have been busy making cards and a few home décor pieces!  This week was the Crafty Secrets monthly linky party and I have made three new Valentines using the Crafty Secrets' new digital Valentine kit.   I adore the vintage images and the patterned papers are versatile enough to use for any occasion! 

First up is a Valentine using the sweet children's kitten image from the digital kit.  In addition, the papers are from Crafty Secrets' Radiant digital patterned paper collection. 

 I used a piece of the black and pink diamond print to create a Rosette and I outlined both the sentiment and image with a mat of glittered cardstock.

The next Valentine I created uses the oh-so-sweet honeybee image from the new digital kit.  I just love this little bee and when I saw it, I knew exactly who I wanted to create a bee card for!  Donna Elizabeth over at My Wells of Fancy makes delicious honey products from her hubby's homegrown bee colonies and shares my love of all things "Bee!"   Shhh!  Don't tell her to be watching for this one in the mail!  ;-)

 

 I'm afraid my photography doesn't do the card justice----the bee and "honey" portions are layered and pop-dotted for a 3D effect and the wings of our little friend are highlighted with some Stickles.   I used a wonderful velvet textured yellow paper as the background, matted against red glitter cardstock.  I used the same glittered cardstock to die cut the heart behind the image.  I also embossed both the heart and yellow background with a honeycomb pattern! 

The bubble letters spelling "sweet as" are from my stash and are  K & Company.   The honeycomb embossing folder is from Darice and the heart shape is a die from Spellbinders. 
Just to show you that crafty mistakes can often be camouflaged, I have to confess I messed up the embossing on this card and had no more of the lovely yellow velvet paper.   What to do?  I ended up covering the mistake with the ribbon and, to be honest, I probably would not have set the ribbon so far from the side normally but once I placed it, I really liked the slightly asymmetrical effect after all!  No one would even have to know the embossing lines are not lined up under that ribbon!!  LoL! 

Finally I made a more elegant Valentine using a heart image from the Crafty Secrets' digital kit.  I am disappointed you can't see the flowers better in the photo, but this image is ringed with images of lovely flowers and I decided to make it more dimensional by attaching an assortment of ribbon and paper roses in the same colors as the original image.   I mounted the heart image on a pink heart doily on top of  embossed white cardstock and added a bottom border made from more of Crafty Secrets digital paper.   Then I added a strip of pearls and a length of lace to finish it.

I'm so glad to be both crafting and blogging again, even if it's on a limited basis!  I hope to post again soon and share a few more Valentine goodies I've been working on!  Have a lovely week and stay warm if the Polar Vortex is still hanging around your area!!