We couldn't help ourselves this year but get all loved up with the crafts!! 

We love any opportunity to whip out the lino printing tools and what better moment than a Valentines Day crafternoon?! Plus we collaged some Porta Craft gift cards, made some pink resin coasters and made some unique pouring painting artworks with Mont Marte's Supercell Pouring Paint and Fluid Art Panels. All in all it was a fun, very pink and very red afternoon. We hope, no matter what your relationship status (because let's face it, we deserve fun lovey things all year round) these arts and crafts inspire you to create something amazing!

To create your very own lino prints you will need:

1. Speedball Block Ink 75ml - Colour choice, entirely yours!
2. Mont Marte Art Trays
3. Renoir Hard Rubber Ink Roller
4. Renoir Ezy Carve Printing Block A4 21 x 29cm
5. Essdee Lino Cutter Handle With 5 Asst Blades
6. A nice heavyweight card to print on, we used the Strathmore 500 Mixed Media Pad  it's suuuuuuuper thick (570gsm!!)

We chose the classic Nokia 3310 to express our undying love. It's the perfect way to say "call me" with a dash of nostalgia thrown in for good measure. Lino printing is the ultimate dedication too, because you spend ages bent over carving out your message - if that doesn't say I love you, then I don't know what does?! We chose Magenta ink to print our image and once we started we were printing it everwhere, on red cards, pink cards, white card; it just looked good on everything.

You don't have to just use this idea for Valentine's Day, these would make quirky swing tags on gifts, or you could even make a bunting out of these little mobile phones!

Next up we decided to experiment a little bit with resin, these gorgeous mix in shell flakes from Glass Coat screamed "romantic dinner for two coasters!!!" at us, plus Ribtex have these really cute mix in polymer hearts - so yes, we psychotically picked out every pink, white and pastel pink coloured heart for this project. 

You will need:

1. Glass Coat Resin Silicone Coaster Mould 
2. Glass Coat Resin Measuring Cups 100ml 5pk
3. Dalchem Crystal Clear 2 Part Resin Kit - 1L
4. Glass Coat Resin Mixing Sticks 10pk
5. Glass Coat Resin Mix In Rose Shell Flakes 100g
6. Ribtex UV Resin Polymer Clay 20g - Hearts 

Make sure you're working in a well ventilated area and are wearing gloves! No one wants resin all over their hands. 

If you don't want to buy all these products individually, we also have a resin coaster making kit which you can buy here
 

We were blown away by the beauty of these mix in shell flakes, they are so pretty and shimmery!

Next up we created a Supercellular artwork! This is just plain and simple L O V E with a cool arty twist. For this you will need:

1. Mont Marte Fluid Art Panel 15x15cm
2. Mont Marte Acrylic Pouring Paint 240ml Bottle - Dusty Pink for the background
3. Mont Marte SuperCell Pouring Paint 240ml Bottle - Cadmium Red to create your cellular heart
4. Popsticks Medium 100pc Natural - an essential for manoeuvering pouring paint
5. Floetrol Acrylic Paint Conditioner - 500ml - to add to your standard pouring paint to ensure maximum cells
6. A brush! We used this Kids set from Mont Marte

And last but not least some vintage inspired, collaged gift cards! We rifled through the paper offcuts box and found some appropriate images to use on our cards

For this project we used:

1. Craft Card & Envelope C6 6pc - Crimson
2. Craft Card & Envelope C6 6pc - Ballerina Pink
3. Images of your choice
4. Mont Marte DecoPudge

Once you're happy with your collage composition go ahead and stick it all down, once it's dried, leave it under a pile of heavy books to flatten out and then it's ready for you to write inside of and give to your Valentine!

We hope this has inspired you to get crafty with your lover and if you're not into any of these ideas then be sure to check out our exclusive gift kits, we've got a range of different kits covering a whole variety of mediums and activities! 

Got questions? Send us an email at customerservice@artshedonline.com.au, and our friendly team of artists will do their best to assist you. 

Happy creating!