Made It: Valentines for Vets - The Lazy Way

Hello! Bought this at a local thrift store several weeks ago:

Cavallini's Valentine's Mailing Set, complete with 24 cards/envelopes, three rubber stamps, a red ink stamp pad and over 100 coordinating stickers. 

Cavallini specializes in vintage-style paper goods and accessories like rubber stamp sets and sticker sets. Their products are on the pricey side, which is why I took note of the above set at the thrift store. It had never been opened and the price tag from a local gift store was still affixed. It was quite a bit more than the thrift store price. 

Since 24 is the exact number of Valentines I make for the Valentines for Vets program every year (valentines given to VA hospital patients), I figured I could alter these commercially-produced cards to make them look a little more handmade. And since I knew I'd be working on a lengthy home improvement project throughout the winter, I was glad to save some time by not starting from scratch. 

After fiddling around with the enclosed cards a bit, here's an example of how I altered them:

Above, I added one large and one small heart, each cut from some serendipity paper I'd made (in this case, printed paper bags were decorated with various paints and rubber stamps). I placed the large heart on top of a piece of paper doily and added the word "Love" stamped on a piece of graph paper. 

Close up:

I really enjoy adding serendipity paper to greeting cards - a little goes a long way, and I think it looks pretty cool too! 

Here's what the card looked like before I add my embellishments:

It's cute on its own but I like it better with my touches.

Even though I saved time by just adding a few details to something ready-made, I still had to write a message in each card, then stuff the cards into envelopes. I used some of the cute stickers from the set to dress up the envelopes a bit. Then off in the mail they went, to the closest VA hospital in the region. 

Those who make valentines for vets are encouraged to deliver their valentines in person. That would be nice to do, but the closest VA hospital isn't all that close to us, so I've always mailed mine in.

Still, even from a distance, I'm glad to participate in this program, and hope that the veterans like the valentines I made for them!