Make Your Own Valentine's Day Card

A Valentine’s Card Using Fabric Collage and Stamping Techniques

Feb 11, 2009 Peter John Shearing

Fabric collage uses scrap fabrics collected together with thematic colors, such as pinks, reds, oranges and golds, to create a striking, romantic effect for a Valentine’s card.

Stamping produces a repeated design, such as a heart shape, and can be used to form a circle, which symbolises fidelity and perpetual renewal.

Fabric Collage Valentine’s Card

To make a greetings card for Valentine’s Day using fabric collage you will need:

• Fabric scissors
• Paper cutting scissors
• HB pencil
• Gold fine line marker pen
• A sewing needle
• An old paintbrush
• Cotton wool
• Red and orange cotton thread
• 3x3” (7x7cm) white sugar paper
• 6x8” (15x20cm) blank white card
• 6x6” (15x15cm) pieces of pink and red felt fabric
• Gold and woven multi-colored fabric
• Adhesive

1. Draw a heart shape on paper, then cut it out. Use this as the template for your Valentine’s card.
2. Lie the template on the felt and cut out a heart from the fabric.
3. Sew the heart onto a different colored background fabric using a simple running stitch. Do not join up the stitching; instead leave a gap of around 1” (2.5cm).
4. Push a small amount of the cotton wool through the gap into the heart and sew up the opening. The stitching will give your Valentine’s card a 3D effect.
5. Select a larger piece of contrasting fabric to back the felt holding the heart motif, cut it to size and sew them together.
6. If the fabric is quite fine deliberately fray the edges to give a decorative. As a border, repeat the felt used for the heart. Cut to size and glue it onto the edges of the contrasting frayed fabric.
7. Finally glue the collage onto a background layer of the felt to complete. Leave to dry for an hour.
8. Once it is dry, glue the completed collage onto a piece of larger, contrasting, folded card to create your handmade Valentine’s card.

A Stamped Valentine’s Card

To make a greetings card for Valentine’s Day using stamping you will need:

• Black fine-tip pen
• Silver felt-tip marker pen
• White gouache paint
• Silver ink
• Saucer
• Scalpel
• 4x6” (10x15cm) blank white card
• 8x11” (21x29cm) sheet of red sugar paper
• A wine bottle cork

1. Draw out a heart shape on the bottom of the cork
2. With the scalpel gently remove the areas surrounding the heart, so that they stand out from the rest of the cork.
3. Draw a circle on the sugar paper. You could draw around something like a jar for this. The circle you have drawn will act as a guide for the stamped pattern.
4. Place some white paint and silver ink onto the saucer. Dip the cork stamp into the paint and apply it to the paper surface along the inside of the circle.
5. Repeat Step 4 using the silver ink. When the circle of stamps is complete allow the paint to dry for about 15 minutes.
6. Add any further details to the pattern with the silver pen. Finally glue the pattern to a folded, contrasting piece of card to create your handmade Valentine’s card.

To make your Valentine’s Day card more personal, whichever of these design ideas you choose, you can incorporate your Valentine’s name into the design or paste a photograph of your Valentine or a photo of both of you into the center of the heart or circle.