Valentine Swap - From Me

What's this guy holding?  He's holding the Valentine ornament I made for a swap that my blogging friend Laurie of Indulge Your Shelf held this past month.   Those that participated were asked to create four Valentine ornaments 1" to 3" and one handmade Valentine card.  I teased a couple of weeks ago with a little snip of what I was working on and here it is in it's entirety.

The only difference in the one I kept for myself and the ones that I mailed is the color of the little glass heart.  I didn't have enough of the red ones so I used a clear one on mine.

The wire was fairly easy to work with.  The hardest part of the assembly was getting the heart to balance after I added the bird.  It was heavier than just about all of the beads but I think I finally got it right so it doesn't list to one side.

The bird is very similar to the birds that I used for pins before Christmas except that this one only had one wing - again to cut down on the overall weight.  

My Valentine was a lot of fun to create.  I used that bird in heart image and this time used the new SU heart die to cut it out.  My background is a stamp I picked up at One Little Spark.  I stamped it in Pretty in Pink for the background panel and then again in Regal Rose and cut out the hearts made of hearts to add some interest.

I also stamped part of it with the little bird in Regal Rose and added that to the bezel frame.   I tried to make this look as vintage as I could by adding the lace and  resin flower.  The tags on the lace bow are from Tiny Tags.  I gave the envelope a quick stamp with one of the images from I {heart} Hearts.  

Here's a close up of the bird,

And a look at the inside of the card. 

I took the largest heart die - the scalloped one - and punched two out of Whisper White cs.  Then I penciled dots in the center of each scallop and used the markings to punch holes completely around them.  I stitched the hearts together on the sides and continued over the top of the front heart only tying the ends together in a bow with a red button.  This made a nice pocket to put each ornament in.  On the back I added my name and  blog address for the receipient.

Tomorrow I will show you the wonderful ornaments that I received.