You Make My Heart Soar

I am currently participating in Online Card Classes' "Clean & Simple 4" class. The class covers using different techniques for clean & simple cards.

Day 2 of class is all about die cutting. My card design was inspired by Kristina Werner's lesson, using border dies & inking to create a pattern. She inked the die cut pieces on her card; I decided to ink the background instead.

To begin, I got out my border dies. Thankfully, I don't have a vast collection of those, so I didn't have to sift through much to find something that would work. I finally chose one of the dies from Mama Elephant's "Landscape Trio" set. I got the hot air balloon stamp from Echo Park's "This & That--Graceful #2" stamp set, and paired it with a greeting from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' "Happy Happy" set. I felt those would go perfectly with the cloud-shaped border die.

I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25" wide, and actually longer than 5.5". I die cut the cloud bank from that panel twice, leaving me 3 sections. Next, I took a white A2 card base and worked out the placement of my sections. I inked the bottom section of the card base (front) with Tumbled Glass Distress ink, moving on to Peacock Feathers a little further up. This gave me the "sky" background for my lower cloud sections.

I felt the uppermost section had a little too much white, so I used scraps from the die cutting as stencils, placed them onto the section, and inked along the top of them lightly with Peacock Feathers. This gave a soft sky effect, without going too heavy on the die cutting.

Finally, I stamped my hot air balloon, using Hero Arts Navy mid-tone shadow ink onto the upper panel, and stamped the greeting beside it in Versafine Onyx Black ink. If I were to do this design again, I would stamp the balloon and mask it off before inking the background. As it was, I had to go over parts of the balloon itself with a white gel pen, to cover the Peacock Feathers ink that showed through the design. Oh well--live & learn!

To finish the card, I just trimmed some off the bottom section and glued the 3 sections to the card base, leaving a slight gap in between each. All I had to do then was trim off some overhang on the right edge, and this card was done! I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially with it being a new-to-me technique. I'll be sending this card on to Operation Write Home, for some overseas hero to write home to his/her sweetie!

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Monday challenge: "Up in the Clouds...."