Grunge Hello Card

One of the challenges during Operation Write Home's Virtual Card Making Party over the July 4th weekend was to make cards for teenagers. You can read about this challenge at Becca W's blog. I also am participating in this year's Camp Scrap. One of the "classes" in camp is on mixed media. So I figured, what better than to combine this challenge with using mixed media?

I've had this "hello" die cut that was left over from another card sitting on my desk for about a month now. I decided the neon colors would be great for a card for a teen, especially paired with darker, "grungy" colors. Plus I wanted to use the inlaid die cut technique again.

While I didn't use a specific sketch for this card, I was inspired by this one from OWH:

I used the same type of angular composition. But because of the size of my die cut, I did it on a landscape-oriented card, rather than a portrait one as in the sketch. I also left out most of the strips.

I had die cut the hello from a piece of watercolor paper on which I'd painted bands with neon-colored watercolors. For this card, I first cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5". Then I spritzed it with "After Midnight" Dylusions spray ink. I daubed Adirondack's Silver Acrylic Paint in three areas on this panel. Finally, I die cut the "hello" from that piece using this Simon Says Stamp exclusive die. I made sure to save the inside pieces from the letters for when I adhered the neon die cut.

I drew my angled cutting lines on the back of the die cut piece, and cut off the bottom portion along those lines. I cut another piece of white cardstock to the same dimensions as the first, then glued the top (die cut) portion of the inked cardstock to it. I lined up the bottom part of the inked cardstock piece, leaving a gap between the 2 sections, and glued it down, trimming off the overhang at the bottom.

To adhere the die cut hello, I applied glue with my Zig 2-way glue pen to the back and popped it in place on the card front, inside the cut-out space. Then I took the inside parts of the letters left over when I'd die cut the background, and glued them in place. I felt the white angled section was a bit too great a contrast, and drew the eye from the "hello," so I painted it with more of the silver acrylic paint. To finish, I just adhered the whole front to an A2 card base. Now I just hope a hero overseas will see this card and think immediately of writing to his/her teenager!