Sweater Surgery author Stefanie Gerard has a recipe for a handmade valentine that is sure to impress even the most discerning recipient!
This is what she’s cooking up for us at a Valentine exchange tea this Sunday at my friend (and superb artist) Carol Parks’ studio.
We all bring valentines to swap and go home with a big box (30+)! from the exchange.
Carol sets up extra boxes for us to drop valentine in for shut-ins, the elderly, the sick — or anyone who could use some cheering up.
Now for Stefanie’s recipe:
“I have never been to a Valentine swap but it is reminiscent of school days when you brought Valentines to school for everyone in your class and maybe a special one for the teacher and a certain someone…
So I was told to bring:
A decorated shoe box with my name on the end
and to wear red or pink shoes!
And the count was just over 30 so I decided I would make 40, then I would have enough for my non-crafty friends too.
This is what I came up with:
Outside back.
Outside front.
Inside.
I went with a kind of snarky rebus
“A rebus (Latin: “by things”) is a kind of word puzzle that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words.”
Here is how I did it:
First I made a big a** mess. No really, I made a few prototypes out of scrap paper (the yellow and pink paper in the middle) and then the one out of red paper that I worked out the other elements.
I gathered all my stamps, inks and some other Valentin-ie elements from around the craft stash to play with.
These are the ones I landed on:
The top one that I used for the “I” or “eye” is Judikins Soul Windows #3 and the “U” or “you” is #3991 F. and the others were in my stash.
It’s a bit hard to see but I stamped the real heart on a pink square of paper and embossed it with red embossing powder.
I inked the edges of the Valentine and the edge of the little foam pink heart sticker.
Now what do I “heart”? I “heart” my new Pink Comfort Grip X-Acto knife! It made cutting all the labels out dreamy!!!
And if you want to make some of these here is the folded envelope heart template:
But wait! there’s more.
I didn’t want to lose my Valentine so I thought I’d keep one for posterity and what better place than my altered journal book.
So here is what I did:
I marked a page in my book to allow plenty of room for the thickness of the card to easily slide through and then cut the slits with my tiny cutting mat under the page.”
Stefanie Gerard is the author of Sweater Surgery: How to Make New Things with Old Sweaters
You can find her blogging at: http://sweatersurgery.blogspot.com/
and at: http://craftside.typepad.com/craftside/
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Howdy! I’m Lisa Sonora Beam, author of The Creative Entrepreneur. I teach people how to get unstuck and use their creativity to make a living doing what they love. 
