I Love You a Watt

It's been a while since I made a card for Operation Write Home. With the drawdown in Afghanistan, the number of units they have been sending cards to has dropped. So they have been asking that card makers send in fewer cards. But I decided, since I've never been as  prolific as some of their donors seem to be, one more card won't hurt.

I based my design on OWH's Sketch #230:

Besides rotating the sketch 90 degrees, I made the large circle a bit bigger and substituted my light bulb image for the smaller circle.

I used stamps from Simon Says Stamp's "Watt's Up" set. I stamped the rays image 4 times with Wild Honey Distress ink onto white cardstock, forming a circle. I die cut that with a Spellbinders "Standard Circles LG" die, and blended Squeezed Lemonade Distress ink over the piece, to soften the look a little. Next, I stamped the solid light bulb image (also on white cardstock) in Mustard Seed Distress ink, and stamped the lower portion with Hero Arts Silver Shadow Ink. I stamped the outline bulb image over that in Versafine Onyx Black and clear heat embossed it. The silver Hero Arts ink kind of blended with the Mustard Seed, so I ended up going over that area with a silver gel pen after I heat embossed the bulb. I also colored in the heart in the outline bulb image with a red gel pen. Finally, I fussy cut the light bulb.

I chose 2 patterned papers from my scrap stash for the background & middle strip. I determined where my greeting would go on the blue, and lightly marked that point. I decided I wanted my greeting to say "I Love You a Watt," but there was no stamp in the set exactly like that. So I inked up the "I Love You" stamp with Versafine, and stamped that. The I took the "I Like You a Watt" stamp, masked the top line with painters tape, inked the "a Watt" portion with Versafine, removed the masking, and stamped underneath the first part of the greeting. Voila--custom greeting!

Assembly was fairly quick. I adhered the blue panel to the plaid, and then glued down the rays circle, cutting off the overhanging bit. I adhered the light bulb above the greeting with foam tape, and coated it with Glossy Accents. I felt the area below the greeting looked a little bare, so I die cut 3 hearts from red cardstock with one of the dies from Lawn Fawn's "Stitched Journaling Card" set, glued them in place, and coated them with Glossy Accents. Finally, I inked around the front of a white A2 card base with Peacock Feathers Distress ink, and, after the Glossy Accents had dried, adhered the card front to the base.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Stamp It!"
Simon Says Stamp's Monday "STAMPtember Hop"
Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday (using stamps)