With Love

Welcome friends! I can't believe Valentine's Day is just over a week away! I took the opportunity to make a special card for my Mom yesterday featuring Tim Holtz' Lucky Love Impresslit. I bought it last year after seeing it on Debi Adam's Valentine's Day card and never got a chance to use it. If you hop over to Debi's blog, you can see I was strongly influenced by her lovely gold penned details on her hearts and flowers, but you'll see I went about it a different way.

I actually started with my background, and drew colors and details from that. I started by inking the Floral Outlines stamps with Kitsch Flamingo and Mowed Lawn inks and stamping randomly on a scrap. I've never used these stamps before, either, and often times I'll try them out on junk piece of paper before using the 'good stuff'. But after awhile I was committed and never did use the Mixed Media Heavy stock that was sitting there waiting for me. After drying the outlines, I colored them with corresponding Distress paints and a water brush. I also added some Mustard Seed inspired by the roses on the birthday card my Mom sent me (shown below). 

After the paint was dry, I blended with more Mowed Lawn and Antique Linen inks. Finally, I used a splatter brush and splattered with Picket Fence and Mowed Lawn paints. I'm pretty certain this would have turned out far better had I used the Heavystock as planned--next time...

 I wanted to bring in some texture, and chose the Intertwine 3D Texture Fade. I smeared areas of the black side of the folder with Antique Linen paint and embossed the panel. I was not impressed with my results, so decided to highlight the weave texture with gold embossing. I pressed my finger on the Distress Embossing Dabber applicator and swiped the liquid on random raised areas around the corners of the panel, sprinkled with Princess Gold powder and heated to melt.

It's one of those backgrounds I really didn't mind covering up, so I used lots of flowers and foliage die cuts using the Colorize Bloom set, lace from the Crochet set and of course, those beautiful embossed hearts. I used my Distress embossing pen and more Princess Gold to detail the tiny flowers and the edges of the hearts. I blended the heart with Kitsch Flamingo Oxide ink and dropped watery ink into the embossed flower centers. The die cut flowers that remind me of pussy willows were blended with Mowed Lawn ink, Lucky Clover and Kitsch Flamingo oxides, and I embossed the very tips with more of the gold. The foliage is blended with Mowed Lawn ink and Lucky Clover oxide. The hearts and parts of the flowers and foliage are popped up with foam adhesive to add dimension.

To finish the card, I chose an old sentiment from my stash and heat embossed it on a scrap, tore the ends and blended with the green ink that was left on my blending tool.

Ordinarily, I would have started over on the background, but I'm not completely dissatisfied with the end product, and I know my Mom will be focused on the pretty hearts and flowers! Big hugs! Sara Emily

I had these challenges in mind as I was making my card and appreciate the opportunity to play along: 

Country View Challenges February 2022 - Hearts AND Flowers

Simon Says Stamp Monday Use An Embossing Folder

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday With Love