...Happy Valentine's Day

I hate to leave Christmas behind (and I haven't quite yet - few things to show you soon,) but When a box of goodies containing these glorious My Minds eye papers arrived at my door, I had to jump into Valentines mode.

My friend Beverly Nash is opening a store soon (card making/scrapbooking supplies of course) and she sent me these papers. Beverly is one of the loveliest people I know and she is working extremely had to get her store ready, she's hoping for a February opening but she also hopes to be online soon - I really hope you all pop over to her Blog and check out the IMMENSE amount of work this lady has undertaken.

Anyhow the upshot is that very soon there will be a new place for you to go if you are handy to Dover, Tennessee, and also a new place for you to go if you are handy to the internet!!

In the meantime I think Beverly is taking requests by email which you can find on her blog, or even leave a comment - I know things are hectic for Beverly at the moment so go easy on her!! I can't wait till opening day!! It's going to be fantastic and Beverly so deserves every success, she has worked SOOO hard - you folks have no idea. (Good luck Beverly and God Bless!)

Back to the pics, I had an idea for a cute gift box in the shape of a tower and I made the original for the Guest Star Stamper monthly competition over at PTI. It's in the January comp so you won't be able to see it yet, but credit for this version must go to my 8 year old daughter. She saw my other one and drew me a diagram of a Rapunzel (you know, she of the long hair) looking out the window in a tower.

I grabbed the papers Beverly sent me and got to it - I am so happy about how it turned out!! It's not that I think I'm wonderful, it's just that my daughter really, really likes it. I think it's the perfect Valentines treat for anyone's little girl, I have to make another one now for my other wee woman.

I Used PTI Dark chocolate cardstock as my base and stuck sections of patterned paper to that. I cut the wee window out of the paper and folded it out to make shutters, lining it with some of the dark chocolate cardstock that I had run through the cuttlebug in a textured embossing folder, I used this for the tower roof as well - I rubbed it over with PTI cream ink to pick out the detail.

A piece of recycled clear plastic from a PTI carrier sheet (those things your stamps come on) is the actual window and I used a 1/2 inch circle punch to cut Lavender moon cardstock to make Rapunzel's face. Same punch to cut the crescent shape that makes her wee wimple thingy and the triangle for the hat are the lovely Gold shimmer cardstock also from PTI. Her 'hair' is a random piece of yarn that was lying around here, probably for 10 years or more waiting to be needed.

The patterned papers are all from the My Mind's eye 'Quite Smitten' collection, and they are all over the card as well - beautiful papers that go so well with chocolate, mmmm chocolate - I thought I'd fill my box with Chocolate fudge brownies - I cut them into smallish squares and they stack up quite nicely in the tall box, wrapped a little baking paper around them to stop them gooing up my box.

Thought the "Be my Princess?' sentiment was quite appropriate since this was going to my wee daughter and I used the wee PTI alphabet stamp set. Since I was too lazy to line it up neatly, I used the excuse that I wanted a 'whimsical' touch, and let it wobble all over the place. Embossed it with white embossing powder to give it strength to stand out.

Scalloped and plain heart nestabilities on the card.

The 'flagpole' s a cocktail stick inked up with dark chocolate ink.

Hope it tickles - and don't forget to click over to Beverly's place!!