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I’ve had a lot of fun making Valentines lately. With just a few more gifts to make the need arose for some very tiny Valentines to fit in to some small heart shape boxes that I’ve collected over the years and a quick glance at what is on my desk provided the inspiration. 

I save everything and for a while I’ve been gathering the leftover negative shapes from punching tags with my tag punch which of course is one of my favorite tools as it already has come in very handy for making very quick flip Valentines. The negative shapes are sturdy and I already thought I could use them to make square frames for further tag embellishing but I thought maybe I could make some little display frames similar to coin displays or slides. 

I tried a few ideas with different images inside and using homemade wax vellum paper but in the end I preferred the tracing paper as it allows just enough of the image to show through for a soft look and has a nice crinkly sound. Another idea may have been to watercolor or ink the tracing paper first. Since tracing paper is one of the few types of paper where I can get a nice stamp the first time perhaps I should have stamped a phrase over the inside image. 

These are the perfect little Valentines to place on top of a few chocolates in my heart shape boxes and my desk is finally a tiny bit less cluttered but I’ll have to collect a few more negative shapes to explore this idea some more. In the meantime I hope it inspires you to think of using negative shapes from cutouts as I’m sure flower and circle shapes  will also work to make similar items.