Catching Up

I'm playing catch up with pages for my 52 in 10 album. I've been so busy at work  this past week that I've not had any crafting time. Today I set up the table, pulled out loads of stash from my cupboards and set to work. Happy times ensued for a couple of hours.

This first page is last week's prompt about what traits you've inherited from your family.

Do you look like a family member for example.

Well, I definitely look like my mother. I see her image in the mirror whenever I look. Be that good or bad, it's the way things are. But character-wise I'm more like my father. He is patience personified. I can rarely remember him getting angry when I was a child. He also loves photography and I take after him with that. Finally, he is artistic and creative (as previous posts have shown) and my sister has inherited that from him, but I believe that is where I also get my love of crafting from.

For this page I used the packaging showing bits of each paper in the My Mind's Eye pack and cut it into strips. Then I cut a pelmet-style strip for the top of the page from one of the papers and hand-wrote the journaling. The layout template was provided by Karen at '52 in 10' for this week's prompt but I used it on last week's page instead.

Onto this week's prompt. Week 7 (can you believe 6 weeks of 2010 have gone by already?) is about Family Traditions. I didn't want to make a Christmas tradition page in February so I thought about any others we might have. There are very few I could think of, but today being Valentine's Day, there is one that ought to be written about I guess.

Hubby and I have our own unspoken Valentine Tradition.

He always buys me roses and perhaps some chocolates or perfume. I always make him a handmade Valentine card and buy him a present that is what he needs but doesn't want to buy for himself. It could be anything at all - within budget of course! - and is always a surprise. This year was no exception!

Now, green and pink would not be a colour combination I would readily choose, but the green pattern appears on the next page in my album. Don't they say 'Need is the Mother of Invention' or something like that?
So a photo of this year's handmade Valentine card appears on the layout, along with more hearts and some pink ribbon!
And this year's gift to Hubby is named on the back of the heart tucked under the photo.........but I'll keep that a secret between him and me for now.

Getting Ahead

I often try to get ahead with card-making. I've made Christmas cards in July, sometimes straight after Christmas! And I just hate to be caught out and have to make a card in a hurry for someone's birthday. I need time to come up with an idea that's personal to the recipient or in a style they will appreciate.

So what's next on my calendar for getting ahead? Valentine's Day of course!

Am I really going to be sending two Valentine's cards this year?? Does Hubby know about this? No and no.

One card is for me to give to Hubby and the other is for my eldest daughter to give to her boyfriend.

So which one's for Hubby? Would you believe the frilly one? I know no other man who likes flowers and frills as much as my dear husband. He often gives me a bunch of flowers and then proceeds to arrange them in a vase and centre them on the table - you see he's actually buying them for himself but pretends they're for me.

I stamped the card background myself with Tim Holtz distress inks (Faded Lipstick and Shabby Shutters)and a small heart stamp, then sprayed with two colours of Glimmer Mists to get a sparkly finish, which doesn't show very well on the photo. The large hearts are cut from My Mind's Eye paper and backed with cream card. The sentiment stamp is from Graphicus and I also used some American Crafts ribbon.

I just love the effects you can create with the new punches from Martha Stewart, but with my self-imposed ban on buying new stash, I had to dig out my Fiskars border punch instead to make the frilly border.

Maybe I should have made three Valentine cards as my younger daughter has a new boyfriend? Hmmm, maybe not. Something this pink and girlie would probably frighten him off!