Love Is the Thing

Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine,

Love, thou art every day my Valentine.

-- Thomas Hood, “Sonnet for the 14th of February” 

Every true lover knows what I know: Valentine's Day isn't about that one day out of 365; it's all about the love that can't be confined to 24 hours, a love which, if we are lucky, surrounds us every single day.

Yep, love is the thing.

With that in mind, I created a layout with my perpetual Valentine in mind, and I'll be happy to share how it all came together (the layout, not the Valentine -- that was just plain kismet).  It all started with digging deep into my Lily Bee stash and pulling together a bunch of papers, including papers from past and present lines. Lily Bee love is timeless, after all!

Patterned Paper:

French Couture Stella

Three Little Birds Double Dutch

Three Little Birds So Sweet

Three Little Birds Faded Jeans

Hello Sunshine Fly a Kite

Domestic Bliss Pearls & Heels 

Christmas Town Die-Cut Frames

Catching Fall Cashmere Sweater

Chipboard Stickers:

Christmas Town Chipboard Stickers

Domestic Bliss Chipboard Stickers

True to the nature of love, this layout was not really planned.  It began with a punch, actually,

and then, boom -- it hit me.  As I started punching out hearts,  I got the idea to base the layout around heart-shaped spaces.

I set aside the actual hearts for another purpose (read more about their fate later in this post) and decided to use the heart-shaped spaces as frames and masks.

After resizing a few lovey-dovey photos to 1.5" x 1.5", I placed them behind the heart frames (which I had trimmed to 1.75 x 1.75"), and very lightly distressed and inked the edges.

After assembling the frames and adding torn strips of Lily Bee patterned paper behind them, I took a second look at the negative spaces left behind from all of that heart-punching, and got it in my head that some misting and painting were in order.  If I had actually planned the layout, I might have done this part first, but if you're a go-with-the-flow kind of gal like me, then this step arrives whenever it's good and ready.

The blue and pink hearts that you see on the layout are the result of near-randomness.  In some cases, I swiped pink or blue paint over the spaces that you see above, and then misted the rest with pink or blue ink. In other cases, it was vice-versa, or just paint, or just mist.

I then got to work adding accents to the layout, including this really-quite-pretty Lily Bee chipboard flower, with a charming little button center.

I also added an extra burst of color to the chipboard heart below by spraying it with layers of red, pink, and white mist, and letting them all swirl together.  I lightly pressed a piece of paper over the heart after a few minutes to get rid of some of the excess, and used a heat gun to seal the deal.

The journaling was added at the very end (a very bad habit of mine, actually), and ta da!  A layout worthy of my happy scrappy love...and hopefully yours, too?

Oh, and I didn't forget about the scattered hearts I left behind.  I sewed them together vertically to create a love-ly little garland to hang over my doorway.

Even the shadows are lovely!