Hi there,
This is the second design in the three card mini-series using the My Favorite Things Heart Art stamp set. Yesterday was a fun shaker card. Today I am using these heart stamps as an grown-up conversation heart card design.
This card began a lot like yesterday’s card in that the ‘conversation’ hearts were evenly spaced and stamped using a stamp positioning tool like Tim Holtz’s stamping platform or a MISTI. But, this card has a vertical orientation so there are five rows with fewer hearts. With this in mind, I started with the center row and worked my way out. Since I am letting the hearts be the message or sentiment, I wanted “I Love You” front and center, and it had to be red, of course!
Like yesterday, I used the Tim Holtz stamping platform with a plastic graph mounted on the base to help position the stamps and plan out the 5 rows. The plastic graph makes it easy to make sure the hearts are evenly spaced. For the center row, I used the ‘I Love You’ stamp in the center and a different stamp on each side. I wanted that conversation heart look so I used the colors of ink you would expect conversation hearts to have: two different pinks, blue, lavender and green, saving the red for the center heart only.
You can use any inks you have on hand. I used the little cube sets from My Favorite Things so it was easy to ink each stamp in the row with a different color and stamp the entire row at once. Then, since it was in the stamping platform, if I needed, I could stamp a color twice to get good ink coverage. The colors I used were: Wild Cherry, Cotton Candy, Tickled Pink, Periwinkle, Limelight, and Berrylicious. You can check out the color sets in the supply list below.
Once the middle row was stamped, I moved on to the row above and below. I used all six stamps as far as they would go, positioning them in-between the middle row yet evenly spaced, inked them up with the different colors and stamped them all at once – re-inking and stamping where necessary. Then, since there are 4 hearts in these rows, I moved a stamp to finish each row, inked and stamped again. I followed the same procedure to finish the top and very bottom row, alternating colors to give a balanced look.
With the heart panel complete, I trimmed and embossed a stitch line around the finished panel using the largest frame from the Lawn Fawn Outside In rectangle set. The panel was then mounted onto a slightly larger white card base. I then added little solid hearts that I had cut out of cardstock using the Hero Arts Infinity Heart set and randomly mounted them onto the front.
Now to give the card a little extra pizazz, I stamped another red ‘I Love You’ heart on a separate piece of cardstock, stamping it a few times to get a very RED heart and fussy cut it out. I wanted this heart to really POP so I stamped and heat embossed the heart with WOW! Ultra High clear embossing powder. And, I didn’t just ink it with Versamark ink once and emboss with the embossing powder once, I did it THREE times by embossing it, letting it cool a few seconds, then inking it again (right over the first layer), sprinkling it with embossing powder and heat embossing. I repeated this procedure a third time. This created a high, super glossy, impressive heart-YAY!
The heart was then mounted over top the middle heart with foam tape, clear Wink of Stella applied to the solid hearts and a red cord tied in a bow on the top of the card.
There you have it, a Valentine for your favorite squeeze♥!
Before I go, here’s a little tip to help create that super glossy heart with ease. Mount the heart onto an end of a dowel that is smaller in diameter than the heart using some double-stick tape. Now the dowel is your “handle” and you can ink the heart without any fingerprints or smudges. Once inked, I leave the heart on the dowel and dip it into a pool of embossing powder, heat emboss, let it cool a few seconds and then repeat the process. Once completely done, it is easy to remove the heart from the dowel.
♥♥♥
Goodies Used:
