You're Always in My Heart

Two of the demonstrations at Online Card Classes' "Watercolor for Card Makers" class were on "vellum stained glass" by Kathy Racoosin and "watercolor monoprint" by Tim Holtz. I combined these 2 ideas into this card.

To begin, I used Hero Arts' Sketch #2 in their "New Sketch Challenge." I stamped on a piece of vellum with this stamp, and heat-embossed it with white embossing powder. I colored the image with Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watercolor crayons. I shaded with Marvy LePlume II waterbased markers, blending that into the watercolor crayon with my damp brush. Then I set that aside to dry.

For the background, I used Tim Holtz's technique to create a monoprint on a piece of watercolor paper using Distress inks in Salty Ocean, Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed, and Spiced Marmalade and this stencil.

While my background piece dried, I cut the stamped vellum into a tag shape, using Fiskars "Tags 1" template, and cut another tag out of white cardstock. I turned the vellum so the embossed/colored side was on the bottom, and stitched them together with my sewing machine. I felt the white embossing on the flower got lost against the white cardstock backing, so I went back in with a pale blue Marvy marker & some Tumbled Glass Distress ink, coloring around the flower and feathering the color out with a brush & water. It's subtle, but I think it adds the definition that was missing.

I stamped the greeting from Hero Arts onto white cardstock, heat-embossed it with white embossing powder, and blended Salty Ocean over it. I cut it into a banner shape, and glued it to the bottom of the tag. I adhered the tag with foam tape to the background panel, and matted the panel with brown cardstock. Finally I adhered it to an A2 card base.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Virginia's View Challenge #3: "Stitching"
A Blog Named Hero's Challenge #44: "You're the (em)Boss"
Hero Arts' "New Sketch Challenge"