The scrapbooking world is emerging from a barrage of Christmas projects just in time to start crafting for the next holiday: Valentine’s Day! Believe it or not, it’s time to start thinking about what paper line(s) you’re going to use for your Valentine’s Day cards, since the big day of all things pink, hearted, and mushy is a mere six weeks away! Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to shop for your supplies and make your cards without feeling rushed.
After my roundup of Christmas scrapbooking lines went live here on Scrapbook Update, I received many, many requests to do a similar article for each holiday. I can’t promise that I’ll do one for every special day on the calendar (there just aren’t that many paper lines for Talk Like a Pirate Day, you know?), but when there are enough themed lines to warrant a roundup, I’ll be sure to post them to keep you all informed!
As with the Christmas roundup, I’m listing all the Valentine’s Day paper lines that were released either at or after CHA Summer 2011 and have scoured the vastness of the interwebs to bring you representative photos of each. They’re listed in alphabetical order, and, since there aren’t nearly so many of them as there were Christmas lines, I’ll also give a little commentary on each.
Ready to start seeing pink? Let’s get going!
Basic Grey – Kissing Booth
Kissing Booth is a mix of basic patterns (I spy doilies and herringbone in the mix) and sweet watercolor images. This line uses brown as a contrast color and is one of the few cream-based collections in the roundup.
Bazzill Basics Paper – Love Story
Bazzill, long known for its quality cardstock, has only recently entered the patterned paper market. The Love Story line continues the graphic style displayed in other lines that have already been released by the company, and they’ve chosen grey to offset the sweet pinks and bright reds of the designs.
Bo Bunny – Smoochable
Bo Bunny’s signature style is readily apparent in their Valentine’s Day offering, Smoochable. Light distressing and the use of light purple and hints of green are the signature elements in this line.
Crate Paper – Paper Heart
Crate has knocked Valentine’s style out of the park with their Paper Heart collection. It’s at once vintage and trendy with its pops of turquoise and use of popular elements such as chevrons and doilies. I predict that Crate will have a major hit on their hands with this collection!
Doodlebug Design – Sweet Cakes
Sweet Cakes is everything we’ve come to expect from Doodlebug – whimsical graphic designs in their signature color palette make it easy to identify. Doodlebug has gone all out for this release, producing a wide variety of coordinating embellishments including a special Doodle Twine card and a Doodle Twine spool featuring a red, pink, and white twist. Be still my baker’s twine loving heart!
Echo Park – Yours Truly
Following in the footsteps of their Be Mine collection from last year, Echo Park continues to produce Valentine’s Day papers in a traditional color palette. This year they’ve thrown red and grey into the mix of Yours Truly (last year’s collection was almost all pink and black), but if you’ve got any Be Mine still hanging around your stash, this new collection should coordinate with it wonderfully.
Fancy Pants – Love Story
Fancy Pants has amped up the pink to nearly hot proportions and added lots of turquoise to their Love Story collection. This is one of those lines that would work well for everyday pages, especially with some of the strong, non-themed B-side patterns that the line sports.
Jillibean Soup – Hearty Barley Soup
Hearty Barley Soup shows Jillibean returning to their krafty roots. I’m completely in love with the woodgrain print – it has tiny little hearts worked oh-so-subtly into the pattern!
K & Company – Circus Valentine
K & Company “themed the theme” with their Valentine’s release Circus Valentine – it’s filled with circus motifs!! The pops of blue add unexpected contrast and interest.
KaiserCraft – Sweet Nothings
This line from the Australian powerhouse is pure vintage elegance. Filled with Victorian-style cupids and flowers, Sweet Nothings is perfect for those who want a softer feel for their Valentine’s projects.
Karen Foster Designs – Valentine’s
Karen Foster Designs’ Valentine’s collection puts a comic book style spin on the holiday.
KI Memories – Hot Date
While not specifically advertised as a Valentine’s line, the Hot Date collection has all the motifs (including plenty of XOXOs and hearts!) associated with the holiday, wrapped up in a completely nontraditional color palette.
Lily Bee Design – Head Over Heels
Head Over Heels is another line that isn’t specifically for Valentine’s, but in my opinion it’s a stronger collection for that very reason. There are plenty of pinks, creams, and floral motifs to make it suitable for the holiday, but the addition of orange and turquoise and the lack of a huge amount of Valentine’s specific motifs make it a very versatile line sure to keep you scrapping long after 2/14 has passed.
Martha Stewart Crafts – Valentine’s
Martha Stewart brings her simple, graphic styling to her newest Valentine’s Day collection. The real news here, though, is the punches! Perenially a highly sought-after crafting item, her newest border and shape punches are sure to be a hit!
My Mind’s Eye – Love Me
My Mind’s Eye chose a decidedly cream base for their Valentine’s line Love Me, then loaded it up with several shades of pink, plenty of grey, and just a hint of baby blue. The collection is filled with the doily and banner designs that we’ve all come to know and love from My Mind’s Eye’s more recent offerings.
Pebbles – With Love
Long known for having a simple graphic style, Pebbles has kicked it up a notch with the With Love collection by including a kraft-based sheet in the mix. The speech bubble pattern is printed right onto heavy-duty kraft paper, providing a great contrast to the pinks and reds in the rest of the collection.
SEI – Promise Me
The Promise Me line from SEI is all softness and beauty, with just a hint of gold to set it apart from the rest of the field.
Tim Holtz for Sizzix – Texture Trades, Love Struck Bigz Dies, and Love Struck Movers and Shapers Mini Dies
Tim doesn’t have a paper collection for Valentine’s Day (though I think that a V-Day version of his Kraft Resist paper would be an awesome addition to his line- hint, hint!!), but since this is such a huge cardmaking holiday I just had to include his new Love designs from Alterations for Sizzix – dies (available in both Bigz and Movers and Shapers mini formats) as well as his new Texture Trades embossing folders.
We R Memory Keepers – Love Struck
We R Memory Keepers finishes up our roundup with their Love Struck collection. Here light blue offsets the plethora of pink, and the collection has a nice variety of both large and small patterns.
And now, dear readers, I’d like to hear from you. Which of these collections has caught your eye? Any favorites? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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Echo park and jilibean are my favorites. I love the valentine cards in jilibeans line.
I think “Love Me” is absolutely gorgeous!!!
– April W
BG Kissing Booth and MME are my top 2, followed by Crate Paper and Lily Bee!
MME and Crate Paper!
Oh, I oooohed & ahhhhhed all the way down your list today – though I have to say the two that ” stole my heart” are the lines from Crate Paper & Echo Park! wow! 😀
Crate Paper and Doodlebug
Wow, that is one long list of crafty goodness. My fav is the Echo Park “Yours Truly”! If only it was available as a digital download I could be playing with it right now. Love the addition of the grey and red. I am noticing many images of vintage typewriters out there as well. I think they are adorable too.
I just was at the Echo Park Website and Yours Truly is available as a digital download so I am buying it today. How cool is that! Thanks Nancy and team it looks like I am going to have a crafty good week end getting ready for Valentine’s Day. I really should be taking down the Christmas Decoration but I’d rather be crafting.
Hands down Sweet Nothings by Kaiser is my favorite !!! tks for sharing
Thank you so much for doing this Melissa! I’m not normally a Valentine’s paper/product buyer but there are some really cute things here. I really like the BG Kissing Booth, Fancy Pants Love Story and the KI line
Tops for sure is Sweet Nothings – gorgeous – and the Martha Stewart punches are on my list to buy!
I like the Lily Bee! Thanks for doing the article!!
Great article-thanks so much! My favorites are BG Kissing Booth,and Kaisercraft -Sweet Nothings
Playing with MME Love Me today!
KaiserCraft so beautiful!
I LOVED Basic Grey, Kaisercraft, MME, JilliBean.
Didn’t see anything from Prima, Websters Pages, or Graphics 45. I bet those are to die for!
Actually, Prima, Websters Pages, and Graphic 45 didn’t have any Valentine’s releases this time around!
Jillibean Soup and Crate Paper are must haves!
I love that you are doing this again for Valentine’s Day! Thank you!!!
Loving the Basic Grey line.
Great article. I like the Basic Grey and Crate Paper lines best. Easily used for other projects.
LOVE LOVE LOVE Lilybee!!! Absolutely gorgeous!!
BG, MME and Crate are my favorites valentine lines
I’ve seen the SEI Valentine’s line in person and it is gorgeous!!! I wish the images here were larger so you could see all the detail. It is worth the time to click on the images and go to their website to get a better look! 🙂
I love the line by KaiserCraft. Sweet Nothings is beautiful.
The Crate Paper line is wonderful and fits in with many of my existing album pages. Love those not-quite-crayola colors and soft feel. But I’ve recently discovered Lily Bee and have to say it’s my favorite for Valentine’s. And the collection is out just in time for our Australian summer. I’m visualizing a ladies’ golf layout as well as picnic and vacation pages. Thanks so much for your review and especially the advance pictures!
Top 5 – Crate Paper, Kaiser Craft, Lily Bee, Basic Grey and Echo Park. I will definitely be using Lily Bee and Kaiser Craft for more than a Valentine’s layout! Absolutely beautiful!!! Thanks for pulling all the info together!
Love them all. Can’t decide. Thanks for doing the round up. I just need a kit w bait of it all!
Fancy Pants, Echo Park and Basic Gray, pretty much in that order but there’s lots in here to love. 🙂 Thanks for the roundup. So great to see them all in one place.
Kaisercraft is sooooo beautiful! So many others are very nice also.