Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sweet Valentine Card

This card has been in the planning stages (my mind) for almost a week.  I try to take a few minutes at least everyday to do something in my studio.  Sometimes that's just putting things back or organizing a section.  But one day last week I had been going through some of my quilt supplies and came across some old rick rack.  I have quite a stash of old rick rack, thanks to my mom and aunt hitting tag sales.  I have some that is 100% cotton, in medium and tiny, all sorts of colors.  This particular stash was for a specific quilt that I have never gotten around to making, just like 100's of others I have good intentions to make.  The plastic zip bag containing 4 colors of rick rack was laying on my desk and as I sat down, my glimmer mist bottles were right there.  I opened the package of white and grabbed the Black Cherry glimmer mist, laid the rick rack on my craft sheet and started spraying.  It absorbed the mist very quickly, leaving an excess on the craft sheet, so I dragged the rick rack through the puddles until all was used.  A little over a foot of rick rack colored with just 3 or 4 sprays of mist.  It was very saturated and dark, which is usually the case when anything is wet.  I knew it would dry a little lighter, but wasn't sure if the glimmer would show up after it dried.  OK, something accomplished that day, doesn't take much to make me feel good!

I finally decided today I was going to set down with card stock, stamps and anything else I could think of to create this card I had imagined.  It took me a while to get the base going but then after that I kept pulling items out to use and finished pretty quickly.

My first challenge was to get that rick rack to do what I wanted, that was a heart shape on a card.  I have been wanting to use the Hot Glue Gun Helpers that Cathie Fillian had sent me almost a year ago.  I've used the mat and the finger caps on some craft items or some repairs but had yet to try it with a card.  I knew hot glue would work well with the rick rack, in helping to hold it onto the paper and to shape it. I had used the Top Note Stampin UP (SU) Bigz die to cut a half note from Rose Red Stampin' UP! cardstock.  I used the hot glue gun helper Press Wand and the finger cap to spread hot glue on it and attach to the front of the card.
With the mat and finger caps I played with some of the rick rack, to get it shaped the way I wanted.  When I finished with that, then I used another piece and glued it to the actual card front.  I glued the two ends together first, right on the glue mat, so easy to remove and place on the card front.  I started at the inner point gluing it down,**NOTE** it does NOT take a squeeze from the trigger usually, it only needed a small amount of glue for great hold.  I then shaped the top sides of the heart gluing each of them down, finally I found where I wanted the bottom tip of the heart and added my glue there.  This makes for a 3 dimensional heart as I did not glue the entire thing down.

Another **NOTE** I have used two kinds of mats making this project, when I am misting I am using the Ranger Non Stick Craft Sheet, when I'm gluing I'm using the mat that is a part of the Hot Glue Gun Helpers.

On the background Regal Rose paper I used VersaMark and a heart stamp from a retired Stampin'UP! set called Filled with Love.  On the top note label I used VersaMark again with another stamp from that set to stamp the Feb 14.  Then I used Diamond Stickles to highlight the stitching  and the small heart on the top note label.

I created a banner by misting plain white paper with the Black Cherry Glimmer mist and tearing to create a jagged edge.  I would use cardstock the next time though.  I stamped the Sweet Valentine phrase with Black Soot Distress Ink.  The phrase is from a retired Stampin'UP! hostess set, Something to Celebrate.  I added SU Rhinestone Jewels to each side of the phrase for accent.

I wanted something inside the heart, after digging through my stash I found the key charms and decided to use the heart key.  I wanted to attach it so it would dangle, ribbon took away from the rick rack, so did baker's twine.  I decided to use plain cotton crochet thread to tie it on.  The white was too stark, I decided to use the Silver Sugar Glimmer mist to color the cotton thread.  I did not want to saturate the thread so I sprayed the mist onto my craft sheet and using a cotton swab I "painted" the thread until I got the color.  I tied a bow through the jump ring of the charm and again used my hot glue gun and finger cap to attach it to the center of the heart.
Here is a close up of the heart, charm, thread and the banner. 
A close up of the Press Wand, since I forgot to take pictures as I was making the card this is gluing another piece of paper.  I love these tools, the Craft Mat cleans up great, any excess glue just pops right off or if you want to make a puddle of glue to work from (quickly) you can put it on the mat and use the Paddle to pick up the glue.
Here is a link to a flyer on the Hot Glue Gun Helpers:
https://www.plaidonline.com/PDFs/HotGlueGunHelper.pdf




 
A shot of the inside of the card.  I kept it pretty simple with just the heart cutout.

On the inside I wanted to put my own saying to go with the key theme.  The phrase was printed out on cardstock, punched using the SU Full Heart Punch and then inked with the Black Cherry Glimmer mist.  I attached it with a little hot glue, using the Press Wand to smear the glue onto it.

Just a note about the Hot Glue Gun Helpers, these were a gift from Cathie but she has not asked me to review or promote them.  I wanted to share this great craft tool with everyone because I have enjoyed using them very much.

Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it!
Pam

Supplies I used!

2 comments:

  1. So awesome! The ricrack trim is so cute and I love the charms. Thanks for featuring the HGGH! I am going to tweet! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love this card...especially the charms and the ricrack...great post!

    ReplyDelete