This is the Valentine’s Day card that I made for my husband – and this sentiment is perfect as I truly do love this life we’ve made together.
First, I blended Distress inks (ripe persimmon, candied apple, and picked raspberry) onto the smooth side of precut A2 size Tim Holtz Distress watercolor paper.
I then spritzed the panel with a mixture of water and Perfect Pearls, let it sit for about 20 seconds, and blotted it dry with a paper towel. The water removed some of the color and although it’s difficult to see in a picture, it gave the panel a very subtle shimmer.
After the paper and ink were completely dry, I used Versafine onyx black pigment ink to stamp the solid word “love” from Simon Says Stamp’s Love set on the upper third of the panel. I absolutely love this scripty font from Kristina Werner – her handlettering is just gorgeous! I then stamped the “our life together” sentiment underneath in the same pigment ink, using my Darice T-square ruler to make sure it was straight. I didn’t use my MISTI to stamp these parts, otherwise I could have achieve a nice, solid black image. Instead, I had a little bit of the shimmer peeking through, which I was actually okay with.
I wanted to add some bold, traditional Valentine’s red color to this card since I had used black for the other part. I stamped “Happy Valentine’s Day” from Simon Says Stamp’s Hello Beautiful set in classic cherry Ranger dye ink. For this sentiment I did use my MISTI, as I wasn’t sure the dye ink would be solid enough if stamped only one time. However, this red ink from Ranger stamped very vibrant and solid – almost like a pigment ink, so I only needed to stamp it once. I then stamped the solid heart (from the same set) three times above the sentiment, using the same red ink. This time I only used a small acrylic block since I knew it would stamp so well. I really liked how the bright red looked against the softer blended picked raspberry color at the bottom.
After all the stamping was done and the inks were dry, I trimmed the panel down to 4″ x 5.25″ with my Tim Holtz Tonic Studios paper trimmer. I created an A2 side fold card base from 110 lb Neenah Solar White cardstock cut to 5.5″ x 8.5″ and scored in the middle at 4.25″ with my mini scoring board and a teflon bone folder. I then popped up the panel on the card base with 2mm white craft foam cut slightly smaller than the panel and plenty of scor-tape.
