Valentine's Day Cards with Penny Black's adorable Mimi and Miles!

Since the weather has been cold and Im pretty much captive when the cold weather hits, I decided to put together some Valentine's Day cards for my nieces and nephew. As you already saw, I purchased the Mimi and Miles clear acrylic Penny Black set and 2 other Penny Black rubber stamps. So I colored up some more images.

As I mentioned on my blog before, I have diabetic neuropathy and at this stage of my disease, I have constant pain and find that coloring helps me cope with the severe pains that it brings. So with this weeks ice, sleet, rain and snow, I colored and when the medicine is working well enough, I put the cards together. So here are a few more from my stash. I have 5 nieces and 1 nephew, so the Miles card is for my nephew.

Pink Ladybug Mimi

For this card, I took the Mimi the Ladybug rubber stamp (4119J Love Antennae) and decided to color her Pink and her outfit purple. I used my nestabilities for the mat on the image and some old DP that I cant remember where I got it.

















Big Bunch of Love Miles

For the next Valentine I used Miles from the Mimi and Miles clear acrylic Penny Black set. He is so adorable (just like my nephew) and I cut out the image, mat and all of the little conversation heart candies using nestabilities. I also embossed the deep blue mat using a Cuttlebug embossing folder that looks very much like the swiss dots, but is actually tiny hearts. I bought my Cuttlebug on HSN and I believe it was one of the special folders I got with the machine. I have never seen this embossing folder on sale or available anywhere else, so I assume it was an HSN exclusive, but I could be wrong..LOL Needless of where it came from, I LOVE it!! Hope you do too!






















Mimi with Pigtails

This Valentine I tried a couple different things to see how they would turn out. I used one of my border punches and then added on a strip of pink and white striped ribbon to match with the pink striped DP. I made the bow with a homemade BowEasy that I made from an SVG freebie online. I made it a double bow and I love how it turned out! I have been making my small bows using a serving fork from my flatware and that works too, but I thought I would cut the BowEasy pattern out on my Cricut and give it a try and it works too! I added sparkle on the sentiment with red Stickles and Im sure you recognize the image as another Mimi image from the Mimi and Miles Penny Black clear acrylic set. I love her pigtails!! The little I Love You sentiment was from on old old old embellishment that fell off of something years ago and I have had it sitting on the base of my desk lamp waiting to be used. I think it fit perfectly. Everything on this card was made from scraps of this and that, and Im so please how they all came together so nicely.

















Mimi is blowing kisses your way!

This Valentine I made is from more scraps that I had left over from other cards. I keep all of my scraps in a cloth box that I got at Big Lots for $2.00 and it has a hinged lid. It is about the size of a box of copier paper and I just lift the lid and put in my scraps after I trim them of any little unusable pieces. You would be surprised how quickly those scraps build up and how useful they are when you need just a tiny piece for a sentiment, or need a strip for an image mat. I also keep pieces of my DP that are usable and both this card and the one above are made from the same scrap strip. One side of this DP is the pink striped and this side has a beautiful pink flowered image on it. For this card I used another Mimi image from the clear acrylic set and Mimi is blowing Kisses which I think is absolutely adorable!! So I made the sentiment simply with the Kisses sentiment and more of the conversation heart stamped images in that set. I used my nestabilities labels eleven set for the image and mat. I used my Martha Stewart doily border punch for the bottom border of the DP and also the front card bottom border. I actually cut this card down by less than 1/8 of an inch in order to have the scallops of the border look less sloppy with one little piece of the next scallop punched. Its a shame that sometimes the paper is just the wrong size and it leaves just a touch of the next scallop no matter how hard I try to keep it from happening. If anyone knows a trick to get them perfect, please let me know!! So here is Mimi blowing a kiss your way for Valentine's day!
















Mimi's Big Heart

I sold 3 cards late last week, one of which was the Valentine I made with Mimi and the heart and the Love charm. So I made a replacement but since I only had one Love charm, I used a heart charm on this card. The picture was taken through the plastic card bag, so please excuse the reflection and the super deep red color on the image. Seems it doesnt like being photographed through the bag! LOL I used the same dotted heart embossing folder on this card as I did on the Miles card above. You can see the little hearts better on this one I think. The shiny red glitter paper is actually a self adhesive paper and the glitter is covered so that it is a smooth surface. From one piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper, I have matted 6 Valentine images and still have enough left for 2 more.























Love Bunny Mimi

Last but certainly not least is sweet little Mimi in a bunny costume and holding a heart. How cute is that!! I think you will recognize the shapes, the conversation hearts and the embossing folder, but when I am coloring to relieve the pain, my creativity takes a back seat to putting the card together quickly. I dont know about you, but when I put my cards together, I stand at my quilting table and put everything together and keep it all within arms reach so I do not have to walk around getting this or that. With these cards, although many of the basic elements are the same, I tried to make them each a little bit different. With standing on my legs and the limited mobility that I have, I sometimes use the same items over and over so I dont have to dig through drawers and boxes for embellishments, flowers and such. So please excuse the repetition, but rather focus on the adorable stamps and pretty papers..LOL






















Thank you for taking time to visit and I hope that you make someone special to you a Valentine this year. It will put a smile on their face!

*Hugs*
~Andrea