Valentine – mamasbrush

Snowman Valentine

I snow love you Valentine card illustration. Celebrate snowmen and love with this whimsical illustration to give as a card or frame as decor | mamasbrush designs — Find these in my shop now!

I love giving Valentine’s to my children each year. There are 6 of them. I don’t always, and to tell you the truth, it’s only in the last few years I’ve tried, but since I started painting and illustrating in 2016, I’ve enjoyed making things for them. It makes them smile. 🙂

This one, though, was something I did for me. I was inspired by some Christmas decor blocks the boys made me a number of years ago. I pictured it quite differently in my head, but it often works that way, doesn’t it? I painted this in my art journal with no other plans for it.

Valentine art journal entry with I snow love you hand lettered with hearts and watercolor | mamasbrush designs

This is how it turned out.

This past week I thought of it again and wondered if I could digitize it in time for Valentine’s Day this year. Sunday, I set aside another project I am work on right now to play with it and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. And not only is it done in time for me to share it with my children, but it’s in plenty of time to share it with all of you!

Update: I have updated this for 2023 and have it available in my Etsy shop. It’s available as a JPG and as a PNG with transparent background so you can use them as you desire. Print some to give for gifts or to frame for yourself. I also included some small cards to fill the empty space on the page. I love these for inserting in another card, using as a tag on a gift, or even a bookmark.

Oh, and please let me know how you plan to use them! It will make me smile to know that they are a blessing to you!

Click here to find them!

You may find me gathering here.

My February Art Journal Prompts

This month, I decided to join in with Awesome Alice and her February Hand Lettering Prompts. That said, I’m doing it my way. 🙂 (I almost never follow a recipe exactly.)

What are my tweaks? First, I’m doing a combination of hand lettering and illustration, depending on my inspiration. Second, I’m not necessarily doing one each day (obviously, since I have the first 7 done already.) But for me, it’s more something to push me out of my comfort zone. I joke with people that if I just painted what I was comfortable all the time, I’d only ever paint pumpkins. But there is some truth to it. 🙂 But I do intend to do all 28… whether I want to or not.

Below, I’m including the original prompt with the pic.

Rose - hand lettered February prompt — 1. “Red Roses”

A love note from God - hand lettered February prompt — 2. “Be Mine”

This is one of my favorites. Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (emphasis mine.

Jesus, You are enough - hand lettered February prompt — 3. “You are enough”

Hearts - hand lettered February prompt — 4. “Heart”

Romantic Bunnies - hand lettered February prompt — 5. “Romance”

This is my first attempt at bunnies. I never would have tried them without the prompt.

I love you - hand lettered February prompt — 6. “I love you”

Cupid's Bow - hand lettered February prompt — 7. “Cupid”

Okay, so it’s cupid’s bow. I decided it was close enough.

It has been a super fun challenge for me so far, but I am pretty sure it’s just going to get harder. 🙂

Gathering here.

Valentine Tags in Watercolor

I posted about these tags last year, so there isn’t much to say. I covered the fact that I do indeed know how to spell “delivery”, but something about the phrase “special deLOVery” just makes me smile.

These were a handful of tags I made my first Valentine’s day painting. Just 6 months in. I believe they are inspired by the beautiful works over at Elvie Studio.

I picture them tied to a gift. Maybe a box of chocolate, or bacon roses, or jerkie. Maybe in a care package for a daughter in college, or tucked in a bunch of flowers.

Where would you use them? Here is a printable sheet of them all for you to use. I hope you like them. (Click the link below the image.)

Valentine Tags Printable — Download this 8.5×11 sheet of Valentine Tags here.

I found that they printed better on card stock than on regular paper, but maybe your printer is better than mine. 🙂

***Official legal stuff: Copyright remains my own. Please only use them personally or in your classroom. Print them and give them as gifts. But please don’t distribute them online or claim them as your own. If you want to share them on your own blog, please be sure to give me credit and include a link back here. Thanks! They are my original work and I’d like to be able to continue sharing what I create with you all.

Gathering here.

Conversation Hearts with Bible Truth for Valentine’s Day

It’s a message that everyone needs to hear! That God is love, that Jesus loves you, and that we are to love one another.

Christian Conversation Hearts with Scripture | mamasbrush designs

Valentine’s Day is either looked forward to or dreaded by most. Good relationship with lots of romantic feelings? Good day. Not in a relationship, hurt by someone, alone? Worst day ever.

But it occurred to me a a number of years ago, when I was trying to decide what I wanted to teach my children about this day, that it can be one more opportunity to point them to Jesus.

And so when I started painting a couple years ago, I created these sweet (lol… see what I did there?) little cards, a set of six, that I have framed to display in my home. I don’t know yet where I’ll put them this year (our home is ever being renovated, so each year my set up is different), but that’s not really the question you need to ask yourself. The question you need to ask is where will YOU put them?

I made them smaller for giving out too! The kids at school or church? Perfect! A way to encourage others or tell them about Jesus! I love to put a little Valentine on the breakfast plate for each of my kids on Valentine’s Day. It’s a great start to our homeschool day!

UPDATE: As of 2022, I’ve started an Etsy shop. I’ve updated these cards a bit and cleaned them up. They are available now! Click over for clipart, prints, and cards!

***Also: More Valentine Printables here and here!

Speaking of spreading the message, will you help me? I haven’t found much of this sort of Valentine decor and cards around and I’d like as many people as possible to have access to them. Would you please share this post on social media? Pin it, tweet it, post it somewhere. Do it yourself or click on the share it buttons at the bottom of the post. I’d really appreciate it!

And if you print anything for yourself? Please leave me a comment! I’d love to know what you plan to do with them! 🙂

Go forth and share the message of God’s love with those around you!

Gathering here.

Snowman Valentines

With February upon us at last, I’d like to share some of my fun Valentine-y goodness. Last year I shared these little cuties with you. I still just love them!

That cute cuddling couple! Something about cold, icy, snow people cuddling makes me smile still.

And that snow-mama with her little snow-baby. Melts my heart! (pun intended!)

I hope you like them as much as I do… and (Updated 12/2023), just in case you do, I’m making them available in my shop! You can find the “snow mama” card and a new snow mama design now.

And, surprise!!! They are now customizable with Canva! Click through to find out how that works, but you can change the text to suit you and your family!

I’m hoping to have the “Snow Couple” cards done before the end of the year! I’ll update this post when they are done, but if you want to keep an eye out, click over to my shop and hit the “follow shop” button at the top. You’ll see in your “updates” section when they are listed!

If you aren’t ready for it now, pin it for later… and while you are at it, follow me on Pinterest to find all sorts of great inspiration!

Gathering here.

God is Love Conversation Hearts Repeating Pattern

It’s been a month since I’ve entered a Spoonflower Design Challenge. Life just got too hard. And on top of it all, my husband’s at home schooling got behind and my access to Photoshop is tied to his computer. Not a problem… I had plenty else to do!

This week the theme is a little Valentine’s repeating pattern. I painted these fun hearts last year, but they weren’t done, so I only blogged a few of them. It’s a little early for V-Day, even for me, but since I entered these in the challenge, I thought I’d share it with you. Head over to vote if you like it! 🙂

I’m hoping to share my original COMPLETED project with you closer to February. Stay tuned!

Gathering here.

Snowman Valentine’s

I sketched out these little cuties last fall, but they never came to be until now. I dreamed them up with Christmas in mind, but I just love how perfect they are for Valentine’s Day! At least here in snow country. They may not have been fully appropriate where I grew up in southern California where we only ever saw snow on the ground one time in my entire childhood. But here… here we have snow. Not today of course. Today we have mud.

Sorry, back to the point! Snowman Valentines!

Mother and Child Snowman Valentine Card — Mama Love

If I can pull it off, I want to scan and print out 6 of these mama love cards to give my 6 sweethearts tomorrow. I thought about putting the words “My mama heart loves you” or “Mama love” or something else specifically “mama-ish”. But I’m glad I didn’t. This way it can be used differently… like from a daughter to a mama for instance… or grandparent or auntie or whatever. Lady to child… or child to lady, you fill in the blank. 🙂 Maybe I can even get them in my shop for next year. Who knows!

Romantic Snowmen "Let's Get Cozy!" Valentine Card — Let’s get cozy!

I just love this one. I designed it first. Something about snow people getting cozy just makes me laugh. Maybe it’s the sharp ice crystals or the thought of the wet cold. 🙂 But these two just make me smile. It’s definitely the message I’m sending this year. 🙂 I’ll be giving this one to my sweet husband! 🙂

How about you? Did you make your own Valentines this year? Leave a link in the comments… I’d love to see them! 🙂

Update 12/2023: I have the sweet snow mama valentines in my shop and the text is customizable to suit you! I’m hoping to get the cuddling snowmen in soon!

Like me? Pin me!

You can find me gathering here.

The Best Conversation… Hearts ~ In Watercolor

Real life has kicked in and what I said at the beginning of this whole journey is really happening. I do this in my spare time, and these days I don’t have much. January was great for posting because I had a lot of content from the past year plus to share. In addition to that I had a project with a deadline I was working on and my husband was working evenings helping a friend on a house project for 10 days so I was alone at night a lot (I paint a lot more when he’s not around).

In the last 4-5 days I’ve painted hardly at all… surely not conducive to finishing projects. 🙂 That said, this project isn’t finished either, but I wanted to show you the finished part.

I love the look of conversation hearts and, in fact, have this jar of candy more as a decoration than for the kids to eat (I’ll let them start having some after Valentine’s Day… though they each had one while I had them scattered on the table for these pics). They are just so… iconic Valentine’s. At least from my childhood.

I’ve wanted to decorate with them for years, but I didn’t want the standard messages hanging on my wall or from a garland or on my corner table. “BFF” and “Be mine” and “Call me” weren’t going to do. So I came up with my own messages.

Instead I’ve god “Put on love”, “Love one another” and “Be His” among others. I included the Scripture reference in the border and framed them in these inexpensive white Walmart frames. (I love these!)

I had big dreams of having these finished by now and having a printable version for you to use either as wall art or handing out Valentine’s, but the other three have little problems that still need to be fixed and I just can’t justify painting when other things are going undone. Hopefully I’ll at least have them to show you soon! 🙂 Maybe even before Valentine’s Day!

***Update 2/2/19: Click here to find printable files of these conversation hearts for framing and Valentines.

This post may be linked up at one of these gatherings!

I Snow Love You – Hand Lettered Valentine’s Doodle

I Snow Love You!

For the last couple weeks I’ve had these cute wood blocks (in varying greens) that spell “snow” sitting in the window above my stove. My son made it for me a couple Christmases ago while we were prepping for the Christmas Market we participate in at our church. The “O” is just a white block with eyes and an orange triangle nose. And I’ve told you, I have “Valentine’s” on the brain.

Well, that inspiration, plus my Valentine mindset became this cute little painting. “With all my heart, I snow love you!”

I Snow Love You!

Adding shadow to my illustrating and painting is something that is still new for me. And you can read that to say that it’s hard, or that I’m not very good at it, or better yet, that I’m afraid to do it because I don’t want to ruin the rest of it. I could have left these little guys flat, but I decided to push outside my comfort zone and try to add some dimension to them. I’m sure someone with more experience could have done this even better, but I like the way it turned out.

I Snow Love You!

Linked up here.