Sweet Hearts 4 U

I'm not sure where my love of Valentine's Day came from, because as a child I wasn't particularly fond of grade school celebrations of the event.  In my day, there were no "rules of kindness" regarding the Valentine card exchange.  So some children got fewer cards than others.  My mother always insisted that I make a card for everyone, but other mothers were not so thoughtfully instructive.

I did, however love decorating my Valentine Box, and I would proudly prance off to school eager to show off the joint creative efforts of my mother and me.  The closer I got to school, my pride would shift to dread for fear I'd be coming home with an empty box. I didn't!

I certainly don't want you to go away from this post empty handed!  So I've collected a little Valentine love and put it all in a jar just for you.

I created some fun digital images some time ago, and thought they'd be perfect for a few projects I needed to do.  (You can purchase them at the end of the post.) I created the jar image as a mini tri-fold that forms four inside panels. The overall card measures a cute 2-1/4 x 2-3/4 inches. 

When fully extended the card measures 2-3/4 x 9 inches so you could make three of them with one 8-1/2  x 11 sheet of cardstock (the base). 

 I copied and pasted one jar image on a landscaped Word Document page. I sized the jar to 2-3/4" tall and copied it two times laying them on the document as shown above and below. Once printed, I followed these easy steps to construct my card. The red dashed line above indicate the first score line described later.

 Step 1:  Print out the jar image once sized.

 Step 2:  Make horizontal cuts the 11-inch length of the paper between jars. Make a straight cut along the right side of the jar as shown on the third strip above or in the view below.

 Step 3: For each strip, use scoring tools and make a score line along the left side of the jar.

Step 4: Fold on the score line, and keeping the image up, score along the right side of the image.

Step 5: Fold that portion under and score again along the left side.  You are making accordion folds.

Step 6: Fold under and CUT carefully along the right side of the fold to cut away excess cardstock. Don't cut through any of the folds!

Step 7: When the excess is cut away, your piece looks like this.

Step 8:  Now carefully trim around the shape of the jar, taking care not to cut any of the folds along the sides of the side. Begin your trimming at the curved parts of the jar image.

Step 9: Just continue cutting through all layers along the top and bottom of the jar (just not folds!!)

Step 10:  When you've cut out the jar shape from all layers, you piece should look like this.  Now the fun begins.  Open the card and color the front with Copic markers or other coloring medium.

I colored my candies with colors that coordinating with the paper I used, all from the 100 Days of Summer collection from Simple Stories. I tied a piece of crochet ribbon (Stampin' Up!) around just the front of the jar, and created the tag which is tied to the ribbon.  I just hand printed the saying and trimmed each word.

Inside panels one and two are above. I adhered 2-1/4 x 2-3/4 inch rectangles from my patterned paper to each page then trimmed to fit.  I added two of my Sweet Hearts 4 U images (these are FREE on THIS POST.).  The tree and bird (Pure Innocence/ Out on a Limb @ My Favorite Things) were stamped and colored with Copics.  Again I hand printed and trimmed the sentiment. 

 

Panels 3 and 4 are filled with more sunshine and love.  I hand cut the sun and words, and created another smaller version of the jar for the last panel.  I'll add a tag with my name here. I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial for this fun little card. 

These sweet images can fill your own jar projects!  They can be sized to fit your needs.  Just click on the PayPal button below to securely purchase these digital sets. The sets come with JPEG, PNG and layering (or masking) image files. They will work perfectly on your traditional paper craft projects or with digital design programs too. And think beyond Valentines Day.  These would be great for weddings, anniversaries, thank you, thinking of you....or just anytime you want to share your heart with someone.

Sweet Hearts 4 U

20 Digital Images / $3.95

Jar Full of Love

2 Digital Images / $1.95

More fun projects and digi stamps are coming soon, so I hope you'll come back often!

Blessings on your day!