VALENTINE CARDS WITHOUT VALENTINE STAMPS!

There are many possibilities for creating Valentine's Day greetings for your friends and family without having any stamps designated for Valentine's Day!  Let's take a look at each of them to see what you can take from your stash to create something similar.  A lot of the products I used were retired long ago, but those that are still available are indicated in the description and can be found on my Close to My Heart website - scrappingail.ctmh.com

The sentiment is what makes this card work for Valentine's Day.  It is from a long retired set that had a winter theme for warming up - but perfect for a Valentine greeting.  The "Perfectly Imperfect Patterns" stamp set (D2051 shown below) was used for the ink splotches behind the cup (which retired long ago).  Shimmer Brushes - both charcoal (Z3509) and red (Z4223) - provided the shimmery ink to splatter on the background. 

Any receptacle can work to send a load of hearts to your friends.  This cute gnome and his wheelbarrow came from the Mini Garden Gnomes (CC9215 shown above).  Think of what you might have in your stamp sets that could work.  I just used some old punches to cut them out of scrap cardstock!  The base grey was cut using the Stitched Rectangle Frames (Z4260) and the wood label shape was cut with the Stitched Fancy Brackets (Z3686).

This card was pretty quick - I just found some scrap strips and an alphabet stamp set and luckily had two heart dies that fit into each other.  The charcoal (Z3509) and red (Z4223) shimmer brushes were again used for some splatter on the card base.  A few small black dots (Z3314) were also added.  The heart square was popped up with foam for some dimension.
 

"You Make My Heart Smile" is a perfect sentiment for Valentine's Day, and it comes from the "Smile Big" (D2063) Operation Smile stamp set.  It is embossed on the base from "Rustic Sign Sentiments" stamp (Z3995 with thin cut dies).  The peach cardstock is embossed with the Botanical Embossing Folder (Z4095) and the grape heart is embellished with a small white acrylic heart (Z6013).  The grape cardstock strip is cut with the heart border from Fancy Borders Thin Cuts (Z3682).

I think my favorite of all the cards is shown below.  My desire was to make a bouquet of hearts to send to friends.

I started by going through me stamp sets labeled "floral" to find a bouquet that would work well with hearts covering the flowers themselves.  This set is quite old, but had enough space between the flowers to accommodate the heart overlays.  It took a bit of searching to find stamp/die sets that had the right size hearts to work on the bouquet, but I am really happy with the way it turned out.  They all have some foam behind them to give dimension to the card front.  The "just for you" sentiment (M1309) is from one of the new mini greetings sets.

SO - I hope that you will look through the stamps and accessories in your stash and see what you can create for Valentine's Day.  Give it a try!  

Remember - all of the current products listed can be found on my CTMH website - scrappingail.ctmh.com