Welcome to the Ink & Inspiration Blog Hop. You are currently visiting Joanne Cantrell from a tiny little town in Southern Illinois smack dab in the middle of the United States. I hope you enjoy my cards.

Our theme this month is Love Is In the Air.  That means that everything you see as you hop around will be Valentine-y… Not all red and pink hearts, but somehow will express the idea of LOVE! And may I just add… you will LOVE all the projects you see!!!

I have decided to go a bit non-traditional with my lovey-dovey cards and used a bit more masculine color palette.

I know! These colors do not scream Valentine’s Day. But, on top of these non-traditional colors, I also used stamp sets that are not typically used for Valentine’s Day cards but have great sentiments perfect to be used for expressing love! I’m such a rebel! LOL

Here are the cards I offer you for this month…

Definitely not your typical love cards but so manly… Let’s take a closer look at each of these cards.

This card features a sentiment and images from the ENJOY LIFE stamp set (148190). While it is masculine, at the same time it is also feminine and can be used to send a note to your mom or best friend… maybe even your mother-in-law!

I stamped the grass and weeds – are they weeds or are they flowers? Maybe flowering weeds? – using Soft Suede ink. The butterfly and sentiment are stamped in Mossy Meadow. The wooden butterflies are from the set of Butterfly Elements (149711) in the SALE-A-BRATION brochure and you can get them for FREE with a $50 order.

I didn’t want to just add a bow or lines of the Linen Thread because I feel I do that all the time. And, the card didn’t seem to need a blob of the thread… so I did a little curly-que down the side of the Soft Suede layer.

I ran a line of SNAIL down on edge and then just twisted the thread and pushed into the SNAIL. I didn’t have a long enough piece so I cut some more, then some more again. 🙂

The next card I made is a cute little one!

This card uses the Animal Outing Stamp Set (146597/146600). It is perfect for the man in your life as well as for a kiddo you happen to love to the moon and back!

The Mossy Meadow background layer was embossed using the Layered Leaves Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (143704). I added some Linen Thread (it’s a favorite of mine – can you tell!) and a few leaves using the Leaf Punch (144667).

I stamped the Kangaroo and the sentiment at the same time using Soft Suede ink. I used the Dark and Light Crumb Cake Blends to color him in. The heart was cut out of a small scrap of Real Red cardstock using the heart die from the Wood Create Framelits (143730). To make the pouch, I placed the layer on top of my piercing pad and used my open snips (please be careful doing this) to cut a slit about 1/4″ below the koala.

And flannel-ly, here is the last card…

I know I am not the only one loving this Buffalo Check background stamp. I am so exited that is it has carried over from the 2018 Holiday Catalog.

The sentiment is from Petal Palette stamp set (145785/145788). Probably not the set at the top of your list for a masculine card, huh!?! I love taking sets and twisting them up a bit!

For a card that looks so simple, there is a little bit going on.

I used the Pocket Framelits to cut out the pocket and tab. The buttons come from the very masculine True Gentleman suite. The only thing that I should have done but didn’t realize it until it was too late was stamp the pocket with the stitches from the Pocketful of Sunshine stamp set. I think it would have made it pop just a little bit more. And, I probably would have made sure the lined squares were going in the right direction before I cut the pocket out. But, hey… there is always next time!

Since, I am in such a loving mood… how about a tutorial for this card?

Well, that’s it from me today. Keep on hopping through the blogs to see more LOVE-ly projects!

Until next time… keep it simple, Stampers!

🙂 Joanne