Nothing says Valentine’s Day like chocolate and berries. Okay, flowers and jewelry can also speak the language of love pretty loudly, but those won’t be making an appearance at our house this year. At our house we stick with the less-than-$5-valentine. Thankfully, after all these years I’ve trained The Husband™ not to buy cutesy talking stuffed animals or dancing plastic flowers from the nearest Super America gas station.
Today, I’m going to share with you a non-caloric way to enjoy a delightfully rich Chocolate Berry Valentine treat by showing you how to make the first in a series of five Valentine tags.
Let’s get started: making the Chocolate Berry Valentine Tag
Step 1 Begin this project by die cutting Tim Holtz Harlequin Grungeboard with the Ellison Thickcuts Primitive Hearts die.
Step 2 After removing the string from the shipping tag, paint both the tag and the narrow die cut heart with a coat of dark pink acrylic paint.
Step 3 After the paint dries, ink the Stampin Up Hearts Stamp (or another stamp of your choosing) with embossing ink and stamp multiple hearts on your tag. Sprinkle Melt Art Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel over the tag. Tap off the excess powder.
Step 4 Fill in the alternating diamonds of the heart with an embossing pen and sprinkle Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Powder over it. Tap the excess powder off the heart, then emboss both the heart and the tag with a heat gun.
Step 5 After the tag cools, paint a layer of light pink acrylic paint over the top. Wait until the tag has dried to a tacky state and use a damp paper towel to rub off the light pink from the areas that were embossed. This takes some patience and a fair amount of attention. In other words, you don’t want to get sucked into an episode of Downton Abbey during this stage or you might remove too much paint.
Step 6 Lay a strip of rusty metal at an angle across the tag and use a pen to mark the angles at which the metal crosses the two edges of the tag. Use a tin snips to cut the metal. Depending on the thickness of the metal, this can take some muscle.
Step 7 After the paint on the tag is thoroughly dry, use either a hot glue gun or a strong glue to adhere the metal. Then, use the same adhesive to glue the heart in place.
Step 8 With a zig-zag edged scissors, cut a small rectangle of metal screen, approximately 3/4″ x 1″. The scissors will give the screen a more ragged appearance. Press the screen against the Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink pad to soften the appearance of the new screen.
Step 9 Place a small dot of glue in the upper right hand corner of the tag and adhere the screen to it. Then use the glue gun to adhere a sparkly pink heart over the original adhesive.
Step 10 While the glue gun is still hot, adhere approximately 8″ of pink rickrack to the same length of a wider chocolate-colored ribbon.
Step 11 Adhere self-stick pink Recollections Bling on a Roll on top of the rusted metal hardware.
Step 12 Ink the edges of the tag with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink. You can also ink some of the inside of the tag if you wish.
Step 13 Thread the ribbons through the tag and use a small dot of glue to adhere them together near the tag’s edge.
Step 14 If you are as messy of crafter as I am, you will find that the back of your tag has blobs of paint, ink and most likely a smudge from a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (all this talk of chocolate triggered my sweet tooth). You can remedy this (the smudge, not my sweet tooth) by adhering a piece of coordinating scrapbook paper to the back of the tag.
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Supplies:
- Avery shipping tag
- Dark pink and light pink acrylic paint
- Stampin Up Hearts Stamp
- Big and Bossy Giant Pre-Inked Embossing Pad
- Zig Emboss Writer
- Melt Art Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel
- Tim Holtz Harlequin Grungeboard
- Ellison Thickcuts primitive hearts
- Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Powder
- Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink
- Recollections Bling on a Roll
- Hot glue gun and assorted adhesives
- From personal collection: glittery pink heart, brown ribbon, pink rickrack, metal screen, rusty metal hardware strip.
What a beautiful valentine! I love the combination of gems and rusty metal!
Thank you so much Noelle. I have a drawer full of rusty things. I think they add such beauty.