Heart Anniversary Card

I got the idea for this card from a craft company's catalogue.  I started out by die cutting half of the heart die out of my card base.  I then used the inside line of the die to guide my gold pen for a full heart shape.  I die cut a second, smaller heart for the sentiment, which I stamped in gold ink and hand drew a gold heart around.  I used two sizes of punches to make flowers out of gold metallic cardstock to edge part of the heart and added mini pearls to the centers.  I used the same paper to edge the inside of the card so the hearts would stand out more.  I added another smaller heart inside the card so there's a white space to write a greeting on.  To finish off the card I punched three tiny hearts on the bottom left and added 2 mini pearls.

I'm submitting this to Simon Says Stamp's Die Crazy challenge.

Forever and Always

For this card I started out by die cutting the frame (LR0236), then masking the card with the insert from that set (rather than die cutting it).  I knew ink wouldn't get through the spaces if I used it as a stencil, but I thought a spray would, so I cut off slivers of red and silver gelatos and made a mist spray from them by adding some water.  It worked, mostly.  The lines aren't crisp the way a stencil and ink would get them, but it made a softer pattern for the background.  There's a slight shimmer (from the silver gelato) as well.

The label is from the same set, inked around the edges with black and stamped with a Kaiser Craft sentiment.

I die cut flowers from CR0168 (red) and LR0129 (white) as well as a flourish (CR1245).  It was my first time using the flourish die, which is painted white.  For some reason some of the white came off on my black cardstock, edging the die cut.  It looks fantastic.  I inked the red flowers with a little black to make the edges stand out.  I glued down the swirl and flowers, and added the label with pop-dots.  I finished the card by adding black rhinestones to the centre of the flowers.

Wedding Anniversary Card

My parents' wedding anniversary is coming up and I wanted to make them a special card.  I used a few new tools on this one, notably the passe-partout oval die and a punch tool (the kind that needs a hammer) with different tips for doing circles, a heart, square and flower shapes.

The top sheet is a shimmery white cardstock, die cut and punched so the gold cardstock underneath shows through.  I used gold for the cut, fold, tuck die cut as well.  The flowers in the center were stamped on the base white cardstock and coloured with pencil crayons.  The 3D flowers were made up of punched hearts (with a regular punch, not my hammer tool) layered and shaped.  I tried several types of rolled flowers before deciding these looked the most realistic.

I made the bow and glued that on the back before putting my layers together.  My main cutting tool doesn't cut quite straight, which is why my layers aren't even.  I didn't have beads for the pin that matched the red I used, so I took some nail polish and painted two to match.  Once dry I put the pin together and added it to the card.