Penguin Valentine Card

It's time to get away from the regular Valentines that I make for the veteran's in the nursing homes.  Cooking It Up With Katie's Blog had a challenge to make a card that wasn't your usual valentine, so I decided that this penguin image that I got as a freebie at Shirley's 2 Girls was perfect.  Although I finally posted this a day late, I wanted to let you know where the inspiration came from.

I started by printing this image onto white cardstock on my HP printer.  I embossed the image with Ultra Fine Embossing Powder as soon as it came out of the printer.  I've been doing this lately, so I don't have to use an embossing pen & my sometimes unsteady hands later if needed.  The image was black where the blue glitter paper by Colorbok is, but I paper pieced it with this glitter paper.  Another challenge I'm using this for is a color challenge that asks you to use blue and white, so I thought he would look good in a new blue suit!

The design paper from The Paper Studio was used on his hat and scarf, and then I added some white flocking from Mark Enterprises with the help of my handy Zig glue pen.  Magic Scraps glitter was then used on his belly , beak, feet and snow.  The matting for the penguin is textured cardstock from a Mat Stack from DCWV and the matting for  the heart paper is from the Paper Bouquet. 

The lace ribbon was rescued from my stash for this project which is one of my New Year's resolutions.  The snowflake ribbon came from the Target $1 Shop.  This sentiment was another freebie that was included with the penguin, but I added the outline with the help of a Zig Millenium black pen.  Since there was snow on the tops of the letters, I had to add some more Magic Scraps glitter here too and on the top of the blue snowflake.  This cute little heart with the buttons came from Stampin' Up! and was embossed with Versa Mark and blue embossing powder.  I used pop dots to mount the sentiment and the snowflakes that are from my stash.  To finish it off and add some more bling, I added some adhesive heart gems from K & Company.

This card need the inside to finish how the penguin was tied into Valentine's Day.  You Melt My Heart sentiment is an oldie from Co-Motion that was embossed with Versa Mark and the Stamp 'n' Stuff  Kaleidoscope embossing powder.  The Happy Valentines Day is from a foam mounted set from PSX that I embossed with Versa Mark and blue glitter from Stampendous.  Last but not least is the JRL Designs Heart Vine on the bottom of the card.

I really love thinking outside of the box as much as possible to recharge my energy, so that's why I like doing challenges as much as possible.  When you make all of the cards I do each month to give away, you don't always want to exert yourself to make some extra special cards all of the time.  Another good thing about putting more time into challenge cards is that I can sometimes find shortcuts to make multiple cards much faster.  Now that you've seen mine, why don't you make yourself do a challenge today that you wouldn't normally consider.   ~  Lee  ~

Challenges:
Blue and White color challenge from Stamp Something A Weekly Challenge Blog
Sketch came from Stampin' For The Weekend
Winter Theme challenge from Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge Blog
Favorite Color Combination and a Digi Image for the Bee Crafty Download Challenge
Two Different Types of bling from Humble Pie Stamps
Let's Go Digi at the Corrosive Challenge Blog