"My Dark Valentine" Blog Hop 2019: Day 1 - "Tree of Raggedy Hearts" card by Leigh!

Howzit Creative Friends!

Welcome to LeighSBDesigns 2nd annual

We are celebrating Valentine's Day in style with my annual 5 day blog hop❤️

But this isn't your usual lovey dovey take on the holiday, we like to go DARK and TWISTY coz our holiday of love has some very dark and sinister origins, check it out....

It is surmised that it has its roots in ancient Rome where pagans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia from Feb 13 to the 15th.  This involved lots of nudity, men sacrificing some poor animals and then, shock horror, whipping young women with the hides who willing lined up for this craziness coz they believed it would make them fertile!  Lupercalia also included a lottery where the men drew women's names from a jar and they'd hook up for the remained of the festival or longer if it turned out the men actually liked their random selections!  Yikes!!! 

The ancient Romans are no doubt responsible for the name of our modern holiday as Emperor Claudius II executed two men during the 3rd century A.D.  Both were named Valentine, both were killed on Feb 14 and the Catholic Church honoured their martyrdom by creating St. Valentine's Day.

In the 5th century A.D. Pope Gelasius I then merged St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the traditional pagan rituals.  Christians put their clothes back on and the festival became more of a theatrical performance but it didn't stop the party from still being a drunken celebration of fertility and love....some things will never change, LOL!

Around the same time the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day which means "lover of women" so add that to the muddled melting pot too.

Chaucer and Shakespeare added their 2c and the old rituals slowly became more romantic in nature as it grew in popularity throughout Britain and Europe.  Handmade cards first appeared in the Middle Ages and in 1913 Hallmark Cards was born and February slowly transformed into the romanticized commercialism we now know today.

We now have a wealth of gothic romance novels and movies about vampires and the like to fuel our dark imaginations which brings us to my annual celebration😉

The 5 day hop is now underway and ends on Feb 16th at 5 minutes to midnight pacific.  Everyone is invited to enter projects or just hop and enjoy the show so spread the news far and wide, the info on how to play and the hop rules are below so keep on reading!

This is a progressive hop which means it gets bigger as more dark Valentine projects appear in the blog hop linky party below so stop by daily.  Click on each thumbnail in the linky and leave everyone lots of love as you go❤️  You have 5 days to enter projects and then an extra 5 days to hop and comment to qualify for the prizes!

"My Dark Valentine" Blog Hop 2019 is proudly sponsored by

 You'll see fabulous dark Valentine inspiration here daily featuring designs from my new 2019 Valentine Collection as well as the 2018 collection too!  Both collections are on sale for the duration of the hop so I hope you'll see some must haves to play with😉  I also have a "My Dark Valentine" sentiment FREEBIE for you too, grab it HERE!

Are you ready to embrace your dark side?

 Check out the fun video I made for last year's release and the 2018 hop art HERE to help get you in the mood😋

Day 1
"Tree of Raggedy Hearts"
card by Leigh

To kick off the hop I'm sharing an ornate gothic card featuring one of my newest designs called Tree of Raggedy Hearts.

I coloured the Raggedy Hearts with Copics and the watercolour background is done with grey Nuance pigment powder and Black Soot Distress Ink.  The card base is a Crafter's Companion intricate Tag die cut twice from black cardstock with metallic gold and silver rub-on creme applied.  I used the die interior edge as a stencil to cut the Tree of Raggedy Hearts panel and then embellished my card with red ribbon, black metal roses and a cut up Cherry Lynn leaf flourish die.  I love how it turned out😉

How to Play!
*No sign-up required!
 *Enter your dark Valentine inspired projects in the Blog Hop linky party below - permalinks only please which means use the actual URL where your project is located and not just your blog home page.
*The Blog Hop linky closes at 5 minutes to midnight pacific on Feb 16th.
*Please include the "My Dark Valentine" blog hop badge, the details of the hop and a link to this post in all your posts!
*Enter 1 project on 1 day or play the entire 5 days...totally up to you!
*New and old projects welcome - re-share old projects in new posts!
*All art is welcome and you may use rubber and digi stamps from any company!
*Social media link-ups are welcome - make sure your post is public and you include the hop details in your photo description!
Use hashtag: #LeighSBDesignsMyDarkValentineBlogHop2019
*Have fun, enjoy the art on show and leave lots of love as you hop along!
 *Everyone has a total of 10 days to hop and comment!  5 days to enter and then an extra 5 days to visit everyone and comment!
*Please follow the above rules in order to play and qualify for the prizes!

Blog Hop Etiquette!
 Blog hops are about sharing your art and also enjoying the art shared by the other hop players.  Everyone appreciates receiving comments on their projects so please do hop and leave lots of love!  Don't just link up and then vanish, play fair, be respectful of your fellow artists and leave kind comments!

Enter your dark Valentine hop creations in this Blog Hop linky😋

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy hopping, see you again tomorrow❤️

Happy Creating!

THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN