One Big Heart
Use Your Stuff Challenge Blog - Challenge #487
Good day, fellow crafters. Allow me to present to you the card I've created for entry into the Use Your Stuff Challenge blog #487. The theme for this challenge revolves around hearts and despite the fact that I have a lot of heart-shaped supplies in my stamps and dies collection, I have used them all for previous projects. Since this is a Use Your Stuff challenge I went searching for something I hadn’t used before which led me to discover the scalloped heart dies featured in this card. These are really cool, however, they do seem to be discontinued now so I am unsure if you can find them anywhere except the secondary market. I am grateful for the inspiration provided by this challenge, encouraging me to utilize materials I already possess, as I may not have considered employing this particular product in the near future otherwise. I sincerely hope you appreciate my creative solution for this contest's heart-themed challenge.
For the creation of this card, I first began with some light pink card stock. Recognizing that the heart shapes I would cut out from the different layers would convey the intended representation, I opted for this particular hue. The choice of light pink card stock serves to reinforce the heart's symbolism, as pink has long been associated with love, Valentine's Day, and every other sentiment that comes to mind when contemplating the essence of a heart. Once I had it on the craft table though I felt that just a shape alone would be too plain. To solve this I came up with a solution, a background stencil.
Along with the scalloped heart dies I found that I had this Flowers in a Heart Stencil (SC-151) from Picket Fence Studio and I felt this would be perfect to be that background stencil. However, I faced the challenge of finding the right balance, I need to ensure that the stencil wouldn't overwhelm the overall visual appeal of the card or overshadow the other elements. Deliberating on the best approach, I ultimately decided to lightly apply Taylored Expressions Happy Medium in Red Glitter through the stencil. That way I could achieve a beautiful texture and pattern without overpowering the rest of the design.
To apply the Happy MediumI first positioned the stencil over the light pink cardstock and taped it down so it would not slip around as I worked. Then using an offset pallet knife I scooped some of the medium out of the container and directly onto the middle of the stencil. I then lightly moved it around with the pallet knife until I had covered all of the areas I wanted for the design. I then very carefully peeled up the stencil and set it aside to dry. I can not provide you with how long it took to actually dry because when I work with certain medium, much like in this case, I choose to allow it to have roughly 24 hours to dry. However, that said the instructions do say to “Be sure to wash your stencil and spatula with soap and water immediately after use.” so it likely doesn’t take that l.
Once the gel was dry, I broke out the Creative Craft Products Scalloped Heart die set that I mentioned in the introduction and my Simon Says Stamp Heart Smile die set, pictured below, so that I could figure out the final dimensions of the card. Once I figured out which of the scalloped dies left me the amount of space I needed I proceeded to cut out the background and the cover of the card.
Normally I would choose to offset the shaped dies ever so slightly when creating a shaped card but that just doesn’t work in this application. To combat that and have a card that opens and closes I purposedly oversized the black heart so I could use the die in the next size down to offset the shape and maintain a fold so the card could open and close and hid it behind the background. This worked really well so I next adhered all the pieces together.
The last step in the creation of this card was to use the SSS Heart Smile sentiment die to cut some black cardstock and then adhere it to the background. For paper sentiments like this one I usually like to double stack the sentiment to give it more depth, however, I felt that would take away from this card so it only a single layer.
This was a really a fun challenge and I feel it turned out really well. It challenged me to broaden my thinking about when and how I can use themes and the products used to create them as well as to think about how to construct the project when the shapes are not exactly easy to manipulate like the normal rectangular or square card bases I typically use. I do hope you found inspiration and motivation to craft something today and maybe enter it into the Use Your Stash Challenge that I featured above. Remember Crafting is Happiness!
