Valentine Cards - Love you with Blooms and Silver Glitter paper

Hello and welcome, hope your weekend is going great!

I worked for quite while today on cards using a set new to me:  Concord & 9th Bloom Fill-Ins

I usually use very simple stamps and techniques so these were quite a challenge for me.  I had to look the stamping instructions a lot to make sure which stamp to put where.  After getting some pretty weird looking panels, (and I mean some REALLY weird looking card panels) I finally got one that I liked.  I used mostly Hero Arts Shadow and Reverse Confetti inks in pinks, reds and grays.

After making the full size A2 panel with the stamps, I used Poppy Stamps Dotted Curve die to cut the panel into two piece so I could make two cards.  I used it to also cut a black layer to put under the edge so that the holes in the pink part would have black peeing out.  The tiny "love" stamp is from Winnie and Walters' The Big The Bold Comfort stamp set and the large "you" die is from Simon Says Stamp.  I cut 2 black ones and one out of silver glitter paper.

The silver glitter paper is really metallic laminate contact/shelf paper that I bought at Walmart.  It's quite thin so I adhered it to card stock before I cut it.  I also cut some of the tiny leaves from the matching Concord & 9th die set in silver and black.  

The flower you see below was fussy cut from a different panel (I decided not to use the die for it) and popped up over the flower that was underneath it.  I needed to do that because I actually messed up the flower below when stamping it.  It had a darker red center and when I tried to stamp the outer part of the petals, I was waaaay off!  I also had done it in red and had done some of the other smaller flower in red.  You can see the one little red flower left over in the top right corner of the first picture.

After popping up the fussy cut flower, I added the silver and black leaves under the flower to give it a little shine and dimension, then curled up the petal and leaves a little. I added silver glitter Nuvo drops and black Enamel Accents to the top of the card and I was done!

Here's a close up of the flower:

I took the other part of the floral panel and made a 2nd card with it.  It's much more plain and the sentiment on it is from Jillibean Soup's Handwritten Sentiments stamp set.  Here it is:

I really like the first card a lot better, but you can see the red centers in the flowers on this 2nd card.  That's what I covered up with the popped up one.  This one is quite a bit flatter and will go through the mail easier.  I had a lot of fun today - even though it was frustrating at times as I messed up many panels - it's fun to learn something new and work at your craft.  If everything was easy, you would never improve your crafting!  So I will keep at it until I know what I am doing with this set!
It's a fun challenge!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you like my Valetine's Day cards! 

I plan to enter this in:

Color Throwdown Challenge $479
All Sorts Love is in the Air Challenge #454
Cupcake Inspirations Challenge #439 Love
Dies R Us Challenge #90
Cut it Up Layers of Love Challenge #141
CAS on Friday Challenge #126