Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you are having a sweet Valentine's Day!  Today, I wanted to share with you the maze game Valentine's cards that my boys and I created for them to give to their classes.

Timothy thought the little mouse from the Totally A-maze-ing stamp set was cute, and wanted to create a cheese maze for the mouse to go through using the stamps from the set.  Here's how that turned out:

We used a square Crumb Cake card base.  There's a layer of Real Red on top, which I punched a 2-1/2 Circle in to fit the maze.  I also embossed the Real Red with the hearts from the Adorning Accents Textured Impressions Embossing Folders.  I inked up the large heart background for the maze using the Rock n Roll Technique, with Daffodil Delight all over the stamp first, then Pumpkin Pie around the edges.  The cheese image was stamped in the center with Pumpkin Pie ink, and we added a few Real Red stamped hearts around the maze as well.  The mouse was stamped in Soft Suede and punched out with the 3/4" Circle.  I tied it to the ribbon (retired Dusty Durango Polka Dot) using Early Espresso/Whisper White Baker's Twine.  The "you're a-maze-ing!" image was stamped in Soft Suede on Whisper White and punched out using the Word Window Punch.

Daniel wanted to use the maze image from the Totally A-maze-ing stamp set for his card, and this presented a bit more of a challenge, as it was necessary to stamp the image and then make sure it would line up with the maze game.  As long as you stamp the image so that it is pretty close to centered on the 2-1/2" Circle that goes on the back of the maze game, lining it up is no problem.  In fact, I have a couple videos to show you some tips and tricks for doing that -- and even had some assistance from Timothy in making those videos!

Daniel's card is on a Natural Ivory base, again with the Real Red layer (although this time embossed using the  diamond pattern from the Backgrounds 1 Texturz Plates).  The maze is stamped in Pacific Point, with a Real Red heart stamped in the center.  The flag with the greeting is also Pacific Point, and I heat embossed the greeting using Versamark and White Embossing Powder.

Here are the videos in case you'd like to create your own maze games -- these were fun to make for Valentine's and would make great favors for birthdays and other parties as well!

And, last but not least, I wanted to show you a couple quick and easy Valentine's I printed up for my boys to color.  I made these using My Digital Studio and the Crush on You Color Printables Designer Template:

I printed them out using my home printer and Very Vanilla Card Stock.  Very quick and easy!  In fact, if you haven't tried My Digital Studio yet, there's no time like the present!  You can get a free 30 day trial of My Digital Studio Express -- click here, select "add to bag" and then check out (if you don't already have a demonstrator, you can select me as your demonstrator, and I'll receive an email letting me know you've downloaded the free trial, so I can follow up with you, see what you think of it and answer any questions you may have).

Thanks for visiting my blog!

- Michelle