Valentine's Goody Buckets w Mini Cards & Tags

I wanted to put together some fun little goodies for some friends.  I hit the Target $1 spot and found these adorable buckets.  I also purchased cute Valentine's pencils, little erasers shaped like butterflies and flowers, and some candy.  I really wanted to dress these up and present them nicely.  I started off by putting the pencils and little erasers in bags and tying them with curling ribbon - the stuff you use for wrapping packages.

 

 

Next I made little Valentine cards to give everyone!  I couldn't wait to play with my new SP & Company stamps and have some fun.  I made little 3 by 3 cards.   Using the Candy Hearts set I stamped the hearts in dark pink ink on light pink cardstock - and chose the sentiment U R Sweet.  The set comes with all different saying you can put inside the heart.  I cut them out and then used some Marshmallow Glimmer Mist to give them a bit of sparkle and interest.  I attached them to the cards and stamped "friend" next to them to spell out "U R Sweet Friend" which I thought was cute.  I stamped the background along the bottom with the Hearty Hearts Backgrounds set.  Then I added some cute green rick rack.  For the final touch I did some dashes and lines all around the tops of the cards.

 

 

When I assembled the buckets I felt like they needed a little extra something, so I decided to make tags too.  I decided to use these cute little monkey embellishments from K & Company - aren't they stinkin' adorable?!  I cut tags from the Plantin Schoolbook Cricut cartridge to put the monkeys on.  I stamped "hugs" from the Candy Hearts set in the bottom right corner in red ink.  Then I stamped 3 little hearts in pink next to it.  I got the little hearts from the Rain Boots set.  I finished off by going around the edges first doing lines in pink, leaving gaps in between - and then going back to add red dots in between all the pink lines. 

I am really tickled with the way these buckets came together.  I think they are sweet & fun.   I did put some love and effort into them.  Yet, it was still a manageable project to do for a small group.  I can't imagine doing this for a larger group - like 20, but for 8 it was a great little project.  I hope this gives you some fun ideas.  I just love Valentine projects :)