What I Love About You....

Valentine's Day, like many other holidays, have become so commercial.  We shuffle around for days before {sometimes even the day of} trying to pull off the best gift to show our "love" for that someone special.  Well this year I decided not to fall prey to the hype.  I decided that this year my two leading men would receive a gift that really came from my heart...and my hands.

On one of my many trips to Michaels, I found this little chipboard booklet.  I liked it right away but wasn't quite sure what I would use it for at first.  When I was considering what I wanted to do for the little prince, I decided to make him a special little book telling him the things we love the most about him.

Chipboard booklet

Checking my stash of scrapbook paper, I found some that I purchased last year - these were going to be perfect.  I took one of the chipboard pages and traced the shape on each piece for easy cut out.

Red and white stripes - traced the shape

Red and white polka dots - shape cut out

I got right down to working on the pages.  Since this was going to be for my little man I wanted coordinating colors that would be more masculine, so I opted for some black textured paper and a smooth aqua paper as well.  I don't know about you but inspiration can hit me at anytime, so the idea to have a picture of each of us moving in for a kiss with him came to me while at work...haha!

A little lovin' for mommy

A little lovin' for daddy

Our sweet boy is a great reader so we wanted to add simple sentences that he could read showing him just how much he means to us and why.

Time to put the front cover together.  Using red paper with the word "love" in black on it, I cut out the words 'Happy Valentine's Day!' using my Silhouette.  I liked the paper because I thought it wasn't too girly, but I was slightly disappointed with it on the cover because you can no longer see that detail.  Oh well, that'll be a learning lesson for the next one...haha!  The heart and key are from Martha Stewart's line and I bought them on clearance at Michaels last year.

And here are the pages all put together.  Did you notice that the ring holding the book together is a different color?  Somehow I lost the one that came with it and luckily I had some here that I bought for school.  I hope at some point it will show up and I can replace this one...so not feeling that purple with his book {giggle}.

Now that man #2 was done, time to work on man #1.  I found a bottle at the Dollar Tree that was filled with flowers and a note - a message in a bottle.  I loved this idea but sorry Dollar Tree, that note and those flower petals were going to have to hit the road.  My sweetie deserved something sweet, so I chose to fill them with conversation hearts for a different take -- 'Messages in a Bottle'.  I stopped by our local cupcakery and picked up a chocolate cupcake for him too...yum!

And a little extra added touch....

'I Love Valentines' barcode

I hope you were able to find a way to show your lovies how special they are too!