Valentine Market Place with Kelly

Hello and welcome, friends! It’s Kelly here with a few Valentine’s Day projects as we switch gears from Christmas to the upcoming year! Valentine’s Day projects are some of my favorites and creating with
traditional colors helps me transition from beloved Christmas without too many withdrawals! Last year I
created some Valentine’s Day post boxes using the Fireside Holiday Collection and I figured I would do
the same thing with the Christmas Market Collection to create a few Marketplace boxes. Betsy asked on
Instagram if customers would like a mini box die to use with the Market Place Mini dies and of course,
it was a resounding yes! I decided to read all of the comments on the post and realized a lot of us are on
the same page wanting additional market names and additions for the shops!

I’m not sure when that will happen (stay tuned, stay tuned! 😉), but in the meantime, I decided to pull out some older favorites, restyle the festoons, and get these shops all decked out for Valentine’s Day! To begin, I pulled out three colors of cardstock so I could make each of the 3 styles of shops. As I mentioned earlier, I went for traditional colors: pink, red, and berry. I cut the box bases using the Arch Box-Large Die and then used Market Place No 1, Market Place No 2, and Market Place No.3 dies to cut each of the shops.

Because I was using three different colors, it made it really easy to simply cut all of the details for each box using those same three colors, switching trim details so it wasn’t the same color being used. I did add in a bit of Antique Gold cardstock for a few of the details as well. I added some tone-on-tone ink blending around the perimeter of each building for additional depth.

Market Place No. 1 is cut from Sweet Blush cardstock and all of the details are cut from Pure Poppy. I
used liquid glue to attach all of the details with the exception of the arched detailing on the 2nd floor
windows; I attached those with mini foam squares. The wreaths, bows, and swags from the Market
Place Festoons were cut from white and Sweet Blush for the bows. I colored them with dye ink and
blender brushes.

I’m going to switch gears for just a minute because after I got all of the boxes and store fronts cut, I
actually got to work on the flowers and foliage. The Winter Medley Die probably thinks I’m a traitor; it’s
been quite a while since I pulled this set out, but I knew it would be the perfect thing to help transition
these markets from Christmas to Valentine’s Day. I cut everything from white and then colored the
foliage with dye ink and then each of the four styles of flowers were colored using the same three colors
as the boxes and then I left one variety white. I like to add a dot of black marker to the centers of the
flowers and then shape them on a foam mat with the end of a stylus. I gave everything a spritz of
Hickory Smoke Distress Spritz and set them aside to dry.

Now, back to the boxes! The Market Place No. 2 is cut from Pure Poppy with Sweet Blush window trim
and Berry Sorbet shutters. Each of the boxes uses the same sentiment, which fits perfectly on the sign
die cut, and is from the Shelved Stamp Set. I heat embossed each one in gold either on Pure Poppy
cardstock or Sweet Blush. I used foam squares/strips to attach them to the box.

The final box (Market Place No. 3) was cut from Berry Sorbet cardstock. Each store-front was splattered with white acrylic paint before it was added to the actual box. In fact, I did ALL of the details and styling for each “market” before attaching. It is much easier to do all of the finishing details with it flat rather than attached to the box. It also allowed me to add the flock without it falling inside the box or through the windows since I cut the windows on the box as well. I just love adding battery-operated tea lights inside these cute boxes and for Christmas, I gifted one inside each box even if it was holding something else so the recipient could use it as a decoration if they wanted.

Each of the three boxes got clusters of flowers or wreaths cut from the Market Place Festoons Die with
bows. The strands of lights were created with small pearls, bows, and gems, additional flowers on a few,
etc. I also used the hearts that are included in the Cupid’s Arrow Die. In fact, before I began ANY of the
boxes, I actually just searched for Valentine’s Day on The Greetery website so I could see what scale of
things would work….so helpful! Once all of the details were added, I glued them to the Arch Box-Large
using liquid glue and set them aside to dry.

Now, this was supposed to be the end of my projects, BUT….. I had a few scraps leftover from the card I
shared on Christmas, so I kept creating! I hope you’ll join me on Friday for another post from me, sharing a few cards using Christmas scraps…turned Valentine!

~Kelly