Hello, Beautiful

A Blog Named Hero is having a "Favorite" challenge. The idea is to use something on your creation that is a favorite: favorite color, favorite technique, etc. One of my favorite things is techniques that make people wonder, "How'd she do that?" For my card, I used kind of a variation of the die-cut inlay technique. Only no dies were involved!

I based my card on Operation Write Home's Sketch #251:

I did make the greeting panel a little larger, to accommodate the stamps I used from this set, but otherwise stuck to it.

I began by stamping the "Large Petal Background," from Hero Arts/BasicGrey's "Spice Market" line, on 4 pieces of white cardstock. I used Hero Arts inks in Soft Granite, Bubblegum, Pale Tomato, and Red Royal, one on each piece. I measured & marked on the back of the grey stamped piece how I wanted my stripes to be, then I cut out each section from that panel. (I did number my sections, to make reassembly easier!) I then cut the corresponding sections/strips out of each of the other 3 panels. Starting with the left piece (grey), I adhered each strip in order to a scrap piece of white cardstock. Adhering the two 1/8" wide grey strips, between the colored strips, proved to be the most fun. Thank heavens for my fine-tip 2-way glue pen! :) So, in essence, I have one flat panel, but in 4 different colors.

For the greeting, I stamped the words "Hello Beautiful" on a piece of white cardstock, using Versafine Onyx Black ink. Since Versafine is a pigment ink, and it takes time to dry, I set that aside for a bit. Once the ink was dry, I trimmed down the panel, and rounded the corners with the 1/4" side of my Corner Chomper. I matted it with black paper, trimmed that so I had a 1/16" border on all sides, and rounded those corners as well. Finally, I matted the main panel with more black, adhered my greeting in place, and mounted the whole thing onto an A2-size card base. I did feel like it needed a little something extra, so I added faux stitching lines around the greeting panel with a black pen. I will be sending this in my final box to Operation Write Home.

I'm also entering this card in Virginia's View Challenge #15: "Ombre/Monochromatic" (did an ombre stamping with the pink/red inks).