Heart-Felt Paper Crafts

(crossposted on BlogHer)

Valentine's day is only a few days away. I'm all for crafting some simple and charming gifts to give to family and friends this year and Valentines always speak of simple paper crafts - like cards - to me. Let's see what projects bloggers are suggesting...

What is Valentine's without roses? At Zakka Life, she's constructed luscious paper roses from newspaper then painted these paper roses a sumptuously romantic red.

Thinking about making something cute for Valentine's day? At Ali Edwards blog, ae, her weekend creative project was a wonderful little 4" Circle minibook.

Part card, part minibook this little circle creation is a great way to celebrate someone you love this Valentine's Day (or any day of course). This project uses my new Love Circle embellishments from Designer Digitals that you simply download and print (or use on digital projects).

I'm looking at my collection of souvenir circular coasters and thinking would make a great base for one of these books.

Want a simple little gift for a friend? Creature Comforts offers instructions for Printable Valentine Teabag Wrappers and Tags.

These would be perfect to give to friends and coworkers. Perhaps
you might package up a few in a sweet little teacup and present it as a
gift.

There are 4 ways to assemble the teabag wrappers. The one
shown in the tutorial below is the most time involved (stitching by
hand) but the results are my favorite. Other methods would include
using tape, glue or a sewing machine. Pick the method that will work
best for you and have fun!

Dabbled has declared this Cephalopod Week! Dot offers a charming watercolor squiddy valentine card as a free download.

NewNew offered a tutorial on a simple Four-Hole Binding. I have friends I've shared some special times with this past year; printing out some of the memories and any possible photos, then stitching them into small memory books could be really special ways for me (or you) to say how important a friendship is.

This binding is simple, elegant and adds a unique touch to the everyday card or book. You can use single sheets of paper, so you can use smaller pieces of paper, even scraps. You can use as many pages as you’d like, for a little book, or a few, like I’m doing now, to make a card.

The four-hole book could be made even more special with hand-made paper for the cover sheet, don't you think? Back in 2007, Mainly Zaz offered a wonderful tutorial on making your own paper.

Do you have plans to make something for someone this Valentine's day?

I also blog at: Weight for Deb and BlogHer on Wednesdays and Saturdays.