Raccoons & Non-Traditional Valentine

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you had a good week. And I surely hope you had a better week than my friend Sherry who has been battling raccoons in her attic all week. A group of fantastic ladies in my Cards & More Club met last night, creating projects together while telling stories, and Sherry's raccoon stories were the best! (And worst, poor thing.) But so funny. Imagine a family of raccoons who find your attic to be a cozy place to hang out and scurry about at night. Ewww! Then imagine trying to humanely trap those little guys and then retrieve them from the trap to get them out of there! Picture that scene from "Elf" when Will Farrell approaches the sweet little raccoon in the snow for a hug only to be attacked face first. (ooh, flashback to my cat memories) Of course this whole topic of conversation led to many more tales of animal infestation incidents that we've each encountered. Fortunately, Sherry seems to have the situation under control somewhat now.

There really is no graceful way to segue from that story to my non-traditional Valentine card here. (And by the way, segue is a weird word and I had to look up how to spell it in the dictionary... which is difficult to do when you don't know how to spell a word. Think about that. I've always been baffled by that one. I should invent a device in which you would speak the word into it and it gives you suggested spellings with definitions. If something like this already exists, you better TELL me!) Anyway, this card is something I whipped up last night around 11:00 p.m. after the club gals left. It's sort of a non-traditional style Valentine which is why I like it so much. Not a speck of pink, red or violet anywhere! Yellow and black - can you imagine?

I used Close To My Heart's Creative Basics Collection/Silhouette, one of my all-time faves in CTMH paper packs. Very classic. I incorporated some square clear sparkles, black ribbon and used the Soul Mates word puzzle stamp set. The yellow I snuck in there is patterned paper from Basic Grey's Origins. I picked up one of those little paper pads at the Scrappy Boutique in Orlando a few weeks back. The descriptive copy on the pad says, "Origins is a naturally unique blend of enticing colors that are basically, purely beautiful. (I like that.) The decorative paper clip matches the line of paper as well.