The Key to My Heart

Operation Write Home has a "Red Friday" blog hop going on this week that started last Friday. The theme is love cards. There are several designers on the hop with cards to check out, many with videos. You can comment on the participating blogs for a chance to win prizes. You can also create a card inspired by something you see on the hop, with the love theme, and link it up. Prizes are awarded for linked cards, too!

I took my inspiration from the card featured on this post by Sharon Harnist. I loved her white stamping on black, and it made me think of the popular chalkboard effect.

I began by choosing this sketch from Operation Write Home:

I rotated it 90 degrees, and left off the piece in the middle. I also added a banner with my greeting.

I stamped one of the images from the "Cocoa's Heart" clear stamp set (no longer available) from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps onto a piece of black paper with Hero Arts Unicorn White pigment ink, then set it aside to dry. For the background, I randomly stamped two of the hearts from this Hero Arts set onto a piece of dark pink cardstock, using Versamark ink. I heat embossed them with Recollections Detail Clear embossing powder, for a shiny tone-on-tone look. I also stamped a greeting from "Cocoa's Heart" onto a piece of black paper, and heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder.

To create the "chalk dust" look, I lightly blended Ranger Adirondack Snow Cap pigment ink over the black paper pieces. Since this kind of dulled the focal image, I went over that with a white gel pen. I also drew some small hearts and added the "U+ME={heart}" to the panel with my white gel pen.

I matted the focal panel with brown cardstock, to look like a chalkboard frame. I adhered it to the pink background, and matted that with black paper. After wrapping black and white bakers twine from Maya Road around the card front, I punched a hole in the greeting banner, and tied it on with more twine. I added some Ranger Multi Medium Matte to the knot to keep it from coming untied. For the outermost mat, I rubbed more black paper with the Snow Cap ink, and adhered the card front to that with foam tape. Finally, I adhered the completed front to an A2 card base. I will be sending this card to Operation Write Home.

I'm also entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.