Scrapbook Layout: Valentines Day

Here is a layout showing Sammy's first Valentines Day. I had to go back to this post detailing Zack's imagination about Valentines presents to remember the full story. 

As far as the creative highlights for this layout go, there are several things that I thought were really fun to do.  You may recognize that curvy shape around the two red pictures as the frame left by the Top Note* die for the Big Shot. I love those frames as much as the note itself.  The white journaling block is also a Top Note, that was cut, then turned horizontally and cut again to leave a square note and two curvy bracket shapes.  Awwwe-some!  I didn't think of it.  But I like it a lot.  I did fine tune it a bit - the brackets left by a single cut are a little heavy-handed looking, I think.  I scooted them in and ran them again to make them a little skinnier and give a more delicate look.

The second fun thing was a new embossing powder I have in a color called Red Chile.  It's a really interesting combination of clear, red and black embossing powder.  I used it at the bottom of the red journaling paper over clear ink, on the chipboard pieces and on the metal hearts.  The chipboard was all raw pieces which I inked with brown and red in a mottled pattern.  When I melted the embossing powder on the flower, the color wasn't quite right so I inked and embossed again, which ended up burning some of the embossing powder.  The burned powder changed to a matte color with a whole different look! I decided I liked it that way.  

The metal hearts were hand cut with regular scissors out of some (washed!) heavy foil takeout packaging.  I find it really satisfying to make something out of throwaway stuff - like it increases the total amount of beauty in the world.  Cheesy, yes but hey, it's true!  The embossing powder behaved differently on the metal too - it melted and moved around, blown by the heat gun.  Interesting stuff.

*Top Note die - this is an exclusive Sizzix die from Stampin Up.  I have a favorite drug dealer Stampin Up consultant, but when I link directly to products it takes you to a generic site, not giving Cheryl credit for all the inspiration and design work she contributes to my papercrafting hobby and not giving you the preferred pricing you get by going through a consultant.  Which is a very long way to say - if you actually want to buy the Top Note, go to this Stampin Up site, click Products / Shop Now, and search for "Top Note". 

** Edited to add: Stampin Up added a feature so that I can make my links go directly to Cheryl's site - yay!  You can use that link now and go directly to the product, benefit Cheryl and get preferred pricing.