Valentines Day

 So I am posting Valentines day almost just in time for St Patricks and for a reason I am very much ashamed of.  Actually there is good news and bad news about valentines cards. The good news is that most (and I use that word loosely)  of them actually made it in the mail in time . Unfortunately the ones that didn't make it in the mail were my close families. My parents were actually away from home for the holiday so I figured I had time to mail them later and then I kept putting those off and then I blinked and it was almost March.  The others didn't make it in the mail because I kept putting them off because I was trying to come up with some gifts to send with them. I got overwhelmed with my hoarding stuff  so I didn't get anything together to send.  I didn't want to post the cards until i got the rest of them in the mail and as I sent these out with the St Pats card I am going to go ahead and make this post.

The cute lil teddy bear for this holiday is from a pattern by Eliz Davis. The pattern actually has several  ideas for adding buttons to personalize them for holidays. I wasn't able to find any cute charms or buttons to fit so I actually found some stamping  blanks that were in my hoarded stash that  fit perfectly, so yeah me for using something from my stash instead of buying something more! I rarely do metal stamping and it definately takes practice to do. I dont love the way they turned out but it fit the spot really well.

I first tried using some purple thread because I wanted to use something other than pink or red but this thread was very difficult to work with. I am not sure what this thread is because the label was gone but the plys tended to split. Since this pattern is fairly large I went with a thread that I knew was easier to work with. I am pretty bummed that I didn't keep working with the purple thread because the finished product looks so much better but I knew I didn't want to have to struggle with the thread. This doodad has a weird join around the nose area which fought me on almost every time I had to do it so I didn't want to add more grief to making these.

 I ended up using the pink thread from artiste which is called dawn rose. I have used this particular thread several times but it is nice to work with so I rolled wit h it. I did end up having to press and starch the doodads. I wasn't able to make them stiffer by using glue because of the metal stamp blanks but I guess they turned out ok, just not as stiff as I would have preferred.  I made 14 of these tatted doodads and cards.

I am going to go ahead a punch the publish button and get this posted and hope I have enougth left in me to keep going so I can get something posted for St Pats since they have made it in the mail. Wish me luck!