I'd Never Forget You

As I said in this post, I'm trying to make more masculine and kid-friendly cards for Operation Write Home. This card would obviously fall in the latter category. I used OWH's Sketch #246 as the basis for my design:

I began by stamping the elephants from this Hero Arts set on a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper that I'd cut to 2.5" square, using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink. I colored them in with Inktense pencils, and used blue watercolor for the sky. (The ground was done with pencil and a damp brush.) Once that dried, I added Glossy Accents to the eyes.

For the background, I embossed a piece of light grey cardstock with Darice's "Plaid Background" embossing folder. I matted the focal panel with a mid-value grey cardstock, and glued it in place.

I die cut another piece from the same cardstock as the mat with one of the "Stitched Tags" dies by Pretty Pink Posh. I stamped the greeting from the same stamp set on that in Versamark, and heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder. Then I punched a hole in either end, and threaded some black and white bakers twine by Maya Road through them. After adding foam tape to the back of the tag, on either side of the twine, I adhered the tag in place. Finally, I wrapped the twine around the background, and taped the ends to the back.

I used 3 of Impression Obsession's "Buttons" dies to die cut buttons from dark grey cardstock. After gluing them in place around the focal panel, I stitched through the holes with white embroidery floss. To finish the card, I adhered the front to an A2 card base. I will be sending this to Operation Write Home, for some overseas hero to send home to his/her kiddo.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Add a Little Texture"
a2z Scrapbooking's February challenge: "Embossing"
Hero Arts "Nature" challenge