The Greetery {Valentine Market Place}

 

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 small box die to use with the Market Place Mini Die 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 or if that will happen, 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 2^nd floor windows; I attached those with mini foam squares. The wreaths, bows, and swags from the Market Place Holiday 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 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.

These were SO much fun to create and I just love how they turned out!