Today's card was designed for the "Inlaid Die-Cut" challenge @ the Mix It Up Challenge Blog and inspired by sketch #271 @ Hand Stamped Sentiments. I will also be entering it @ Fashionable Stamping Challenge for "Use Your Inks Any Way You Like". As I said last week, October is a busy month for wedding anniversaries for our family -so here is Anniversary card #2...
All the stamps and dies used for this card are from Close To My Heart and the circle cutting tool is from Creative Memories. I made the card using an A7 size white card base and covered it with a wine colored patterned paper from my stash of 12 x 12 sheets.
I trimmed 2 circles of the same size -one for the front layer and one for the back layer. The front layer is where I did the stamping and the die-cutting. Using a stamp positioning tool with layering stamp sets is such a Godsend! I used two different shades of gray dye ink (Memento and Stampin' Up!) to stamp the swan body and the wings. I saved the beak for last -so much easier to do it AFTER you've die-cut them out!
Once I had them die cut out of the front circle I carefully blended 2 colors of blue Distress inks -using the lighter color (Stormy Sky) at the top for the sky and the darker color (Faded Jeans) at the bottom for the water. I then stamped the waves also in the darker ink across the bottom.
I also stamped the cat-tails in two steps -the green first and the brown after I had them already die-cut out. The banner was stamped twice on the soft blush/petal colored cardstock and heat embossed in Pearl White before being fussy cut out. (Wine and Petal were the featured colors at my daughter's wedding last October and that is why I chose these colors for their card)
After assembling all the basic layers, including the wine colored ribbon, according to the sketch, I stamped "Happy" in wine ink and heat embossed "Anniversary" in Pearl White on a piece of vellum.
To get the inlaid die-cut look, I adhered the swans flat to the back circle that I had blended the lighter blue Distress ink over and then popped the top layer up around it using foam tape. I also stamped the hearts in wine ink and fussy cut them out -popping just the biggest one up with a mini pop dot.
Although this card took a lot of steps to complete, I was so pleased with the way it unfolded...I'd had a vision in my head of what I wanted to do and just wasn't sure if I could pull it off, lol. But I am happy to report that I did it!
Inside I kept things nice and simple, stamping the sentiment and the tiny heart in wine ink and that's it! My daughter and I both love the Nicholas Sparks book and movie of The Notebook, so I am hoping she will catch the Swan reference, but if she doesn't that's ok too. I love swans for the symbolism they represent of a lifelong love -I even have a swan charm on my Pandora bracelet. Because I love them so much, I just had to have this stamp and die set when it went on sale last month!
Until next time~
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