Two Happy Cards

On Day 4 of Online Card Classes' "Stretch Your Dies" class, Kristina Werner had a lesson on "Word & Mini Dies Combined." I had 2 cards inspired by that lesson in this post. Today I did another two, more like her example.

I began by cutting a piece of pink cardstock to 4x5.25", and blended Worn Lipstick Distress ink from the bottom edge up to about the center, letting it fade out to the pink base. Then I used Fired Brick to darken about the lower third of the cardstock. Finally, I brought in Aged Mahogany, which is a burgundy color, to darken the very edge. This produced an ombre effect, without too much effort. I did finally discovered the secret to ink blending--use a light hand. I have always tended to push down on the ink blending tool, trying to get good ink coverage. But today I finally figured out if you just hold the tool lightly, and just keep going over the area, it will blend better and still get as dark or bold as you want. Go figure!

Once I'd finished inking the cardstock, I dried it with my heat tool. I then taped Simon Says Stamp's "Big Hello" die onto the panel, and ran it through my die cutting machine. As instructed, I made sure to keep the positive & negative pieces from that die cutting. Next, I die cut 3 different sizes of hearts from the background, using dies from a Project Life set, My Favorite Things' "Blueprints 15," and WPlus9's "Seasonal Sentiments." I made sure to keep all the hearts I cut out.

To create my first card, I created a white A2 card base. I taped the negative die cut piece to the front with Post-It tape, and used that as a "map" for placing my positive die cuts. Then I glued my "hello" & heart die cuts in place using liquid glue. Once I had everything glued down, I carefully removed the negative piece.

For my second card, all I had to do was apply LOTS of foam tape pieces to the back of the negative die cut piece, and adhere it to another white A2 card base. I also popped up the inner pieces of the letters with foam tape. (NOT easy with the tiny pieces in the "e" and "o"!) And that finished both cards.