The idea came to her in bed.

Lenita Gratz had Valentine’s Day cards on her mind when she went to bed. And, as so often happens, the idea for what she wanted to make came to her as she snuggled in.

“I was thinking that I wanted to make something with a different color,” said Gratz, who has been making and stamping her own cards for a decade. “I like purple and green together, and I wanted to be able to incorporate packing tape and glitter. So I got an idea in my head and just thought, ‘Well, I’ll try this and see how it works.’

When she sat down to put it together the next morning, the idea worked. She layered eggplant purple paper with a strategically torn corner over a deep green card; then she randomly stamped the word “love” across the purple paper. Finally, she cut a square through both layers, applied a piece of packing tape behind the hole, and sprinkled shiny white glitter over it.

“It doesn’t always work out on paper the way it does in your head,” Gratz says. “You just have to try it out.”

Over the years, Gratz has tried thousands of ideas — some her own, some borrowed from magazines, Web sites or other stampers. Since she became a demonstrator for Stampin? Up!, a national direct-sales company that sells stamps and all the accompanying accessories, five years ago, she’s been sharing her ideas with others as well. “Coming up with the idea is the hardest part,” she said. “Once you’ve got the idea and you have your materials ready, it takes no time at all.”

Putting together a pair of the purple and green cards with her friend and fellow cardmaker Lori Christiansen, for example, took fewer than 10 minutes. Many of the other Valentine’s cards she had crafted took about the same amount of time, including some with candy bars or chocolate kisses tucked inside. The secret, Gratz says, is to have the materials cut and ready when you get started.

In the past 10 years, Gratz has accumulated plenty of materials. She has well more than a thousand stamps, hundreds of ink pads and stacks of card stock. When it’s not all spread out on her dining room table for a monthly demonstration or a quick card-making session, it’s stashed behind a closed door in her “stamping room.”

“Once you start, it just snowballs,” she said. “There’s no stopping it.”

Starting is easy. All it takes to make homemade cards, Gratz says, is an inkpad, nice card stock, some simple stamps and an adhesive, such as two-sided tape or a glue stick, to bind the various layers of the card together.

Beyond that, however, are all the other accessories: ribbons, glitter, eyelets and fancy paper clips, for starters. Gratz also has used shaving cream, hair gel and rubbing alcohol in the creative process. Lately, she’s even had to drag out her sewing machine. “The stitched look is very big right now,” she said. “We’ve even done faux stitching, where you poke tiny holes and then draw white lines connecting them.”

As much fun as it is to get creative, sometimes simple cards are just as treasured. The trick, Gratz says, is to make each particular card for the particular person it’s being given to.

“I try to make every card personal for that person,” she said. “I start out knowing who it’s for, then pick a set of stamps that’s appropriate and go for it. That’s the best way to do it.”

When she has a number of cards to make for the same occasion — Christmas or Valentine’s Day, for example — she decides on a certain pattern that works for all of them. Then she cuts the paper, prepares the materials and creates an assembly line to put them together. Often, she’ll get together with a friend for such sessions.

“Usually, that’s when Lori and I will get together,” she says. “It’s good girl time for us.”