March is Apparently Birthday Month

It seems to me that a lot of people have March birthdays. And, because I hate doing things last minute, and because I spend the end of every year concentrating on Christmas cards, I often find there's nothing ready-made in my box! So, I've been working on a few, and of course, Valentine's Day is coming up too.

First, the card I made for my OH. I'm a firm believer that valentines should never be signed, so although he's going to know it's from me, it'll be signed 'an admirer'! I've used some gorgeous shimmer card I picked up at the BSSBS at Alexandra Palace in September, and embossed it using one of my new Embossalicious square embossing folders! Thank goodness that there's one company out there who have realised that most people seem to make square cards! The heart dies are from Marianne, and the label die is from Spellbinders.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Top Tip Tuesdays where the theme is 'Let me call you Sweetheart',
Party Time Tuesdays where the theme is 'love and romance',
Crazy Amigos where the theme is 'hearts',
Celebrate the Occasion where they want a valentine card with ribbon,
Emerald Faeries where the theme is 'love',
Cards for Men where the theme is love/romance,
Created with Love Challenges where the theme is Valentines,
Kaboodle Doodles where they want hearts,
Dream Valley where they want valentines,
The ABC challenge where they're going dotty.

This is the first of two birthday card in this post. The image is from Delicious Doodles via Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps.I coloured it with Promarkers and Flexmarkers and cut it with my Spellbinders Octagon die. I matted with more octagons. The paper is from the Papermania Capsule collection - one of my absolute favourites from that pad. I finished with die cut 'leaves' and some flowers made from punched shapes. I added shading to the petals using Distress Ink.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Craftroom Challenge where they want us to make our own embellishments,
Bearly Mine where anything goes,
Papertake Weekly where anything goes,
Happy Campers where they want flowers and something digital (the image is a digi),

And another birthday card. This one uses an image from a stamp I bought at Alexandra Palace. I can't tell you whose stamp it is - it was in a bargain bucket and I just fell in love with the simplicity of it. It kind of reminds me of Clarice Cliff images. I stamped in Memento ink and coloured with Promarkers and Flexmarkers. The first mat is die cut using a Nellie Snellen die. In the background, I've got some paper I've had for many years - it was a magazine freebie. I've also embossed some card. The folder is a Sizzix one and I've added some colour to the embossing using some pastel sticks and softened the effect with a brush.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Artistic Inspirations where they want embossing,
Bunny Zoe where anything goes,