You're Always in My Heart

I have been participating in Online Card Classes' "Stretch Your Stamps 2" the past couple of weeks. My card this time was inspired by one that Shari Carroll did for Day 1, which focused on background stamps. She stamped a background image, then cut it into 1" squares and mounted those on her card front with foam adhesive.

I had a piece left over from this card. Since my "leftovers" pile is getting a bit high for my taste, I decided to do something with this piece. So, taking my cue from Shari's card, I cut the panel into 3/4" squares. Then I arranged those around the perimeter of piece of navy cardstock. I originally cut the navy to 4.25x5.5", but ended up having to cut it a bit narrower, to get the spacing on the squares to work out right. When I finally got the tiles spaced correctly, I glued them down.

I used a stamp from this Hero Arts set for my greeting. Since I wanted to fill the open area a little more vertically, I "split" the one-line greeting over 2 lines. I masked off the "in my heart" part with painter's tape, then inked up the "you're always" with Versamark, removed the tape, and stamped on the navy panel. Then I reversed the process, masking off the first part and stamping the rest of the greeting below the first line. I heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail white embossing powder.

I felt the inner part of the panel was still a bit too spartan, so I punched a heart from one of the leftover square tiles I'd cut, and glued it nestled into the greeting. I still thought it was a bit top-heavy, though. So I inked up a scrap of white cardstock with Picked Raspberry Distress ink, and used a small heart punch to punch out several hearts. Then I glued them in a line below the greeting.

Since I'd cut my navy panel narrower than 4.25", I decided to double mat it along the top and bottom. So I inked up white cardstock with Mustard Seed and Picked Raspberry Distress inks, cut narrow strips, and glued them to the edges of the blue panel. Finally I adhered the card front to an A2-size card base, and added a coat of Glossy Accents to each of the tiny pink hearts.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday "Blue" challenge.