Handmade Hugs | By Laurie Schmidlin

Hi there! One of my favorite holidays to create for is Valentine’s Day. A day set aside specifically to show those we care about just how special they are is something to celebrate! So it is no surprise how much I love hearts, uplifting sentiments, and cheerful colors! You can find all of these (and more) in the New Arrivals section in the Birch Press Design store! The great thing about these products is that they can be used all year long, because letting others know you care is always in season!

To create my card, I started with a white card base, a piece of patterned paper, two die cut panels using the Cherish Plate B and Cherish Plate C, stamped and die cut sentiment, and some sequins.

I adhered all the paper layers together so that the patterned paper was layered beneath the Cherish Plate layers. I glued on a few sequins (from the Pretty In Pink sequins mix) onto several of the hearts.

When using a lot of white in a design, adding a contrasting dark colored element can really draw your eye to the focal image, like I did with the sentiment. Normally, the “Handmade Hugs” strip would get lost among all of the white and business of the background pattern. To avoid this, I embossed the “Sending” sentiment (from the new Sending Love stamp set) in white onto black cardstock. I die cut it out using the coordinating Sending Love Die Set and popped it up sing dimensional foam.