Project 293: Two emotional valentines

When I get asked to make personalized cards I am so happy to tailor to what they want. It's often something light-hearted like 'my husband likes dogs' or 'she loves red and polka dots' or whatever. But this week I had two incredibly special requests and both made a pretty emotional impact on me.

The headline card was from someone who told me a tragic story of how their first born daughter passed away in an accident - on Valentine's Day. They don't like to forget her and so the day has a different meaning to them. He asked if I could make a card that showed their two living children dancing or playing with an angel watching over them. He said his wife liked yellow, blue and turquiose.

I wanted to keep any patterns lighthearted but respectful. I chose a pale yellow spotted paper for their daughter, and a white and blue plaid for their little boy (both really old scraps in my scrap file). The cloud paper is vellum layered over a stitched white circle, layered over a plain teal card. I drew on tiny music notes to hint that they were laughing and dancing. For the angel, I used thick offwhite glitter stock for wings, punched into a heart and then cut in half. I cut out her dress and added two layers of Wink of Stella shimmer. I added a band of gold glitter glue as a halo.

I wanted to reflect the parents so I added two solid ribbons at the bottom as a representation of them. I was asked to include this message specifically, so I hand wrote it rather than printing it. Just something special in that I think. I added five little pearls in the middle to represent all of the family members.

This second card is from a completely different brief. A friend is pregnant with her second child and it is very early days. I was asked to make a valentine that was 'light and cheerful' featuring the new arrival and had a specific request for no pink, purple or red.

I came up with the idea of the little heart family and used orange and yellow for the parents and a little green heart to represent their little girl. The tiny blue heart is added to the yellow one with a tiny little bump. I blended the background from orange to blue to represent the colors of the family, and then I added a simple little greeting and some tiny seed pearls for texture.

 I am getting emotional just writing this, I was so honoured to be a part of both these cards. I don't think I've ever had such significant briefs and it really was special making both of these.