A Golden Valentine!

Aloha, all!

     And welcome to another edition of Sketch Frenzy Friday!  As today is Valentine's Day, I just had to make my card not only to fit the challenge sketch for the week, but I also had to make it a Valentine's Card!

     Here's the sketch made for the group by fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator, Heidi Michel.  I don't always include a copy of the sketch we've been given to use because, for the most part, I stick with the outline provided by the sketch.  This time, however, I turned and rearranged the elements of the sketch a bit.  Well, maybe more than "a bit."

     On the other hand, it was this sketch that gave me the idea for this design in the first place, so my card surely qualifies for the challenge!

     I mentioned earlier in the week that I'd like to try to get as many stamps that I haven't used yet inked up and stamped onto a project as possible before the retired list comes out in May.  This heart from the Hearts a Flutter Stamp Set had yet to see ink before I made this card.  So there's another stamp out of the way!  The Be My Valentine stamp from Delightful Dozen has already been used once – on Tuesday's SUO Challenge card for this week!  So it's officially received enough attention, though I'd not like to see this particular stamp set be retired.

     Once I decided that the big circle on the sketch was going to be occupied by the Heart, I needed to figure out what to use to make the large banner.  I've been wanting to make more use not only of ignored stamp sets but also of ignored papers.  So I went to my box of specialty designer series papers, and there was that lovely Gold Fancy Foil Designer Velum (item #133363).  So out that came.  But what would go well with it?  As I was looking up the item number for the Gold Vellum, the Gold Foil Sheets (item #132622) caught my eye.  Why not?!  So I cut a piece of the foil and laid it over the vellum and the rest of the card quickly took shape in my thoughts.

     One thought was that I would like to use the Heart design from the Adorning Accents embossing folder set.  A problem for me was that those hearts lie vertically along the length of the embossing folder.  If I laid the banner vertically as the sketch called for, those lovely little hearts would be sideways.  Rats!  But, as I couldn't change the hearts, I decided to change the sketch, as least as it applied to my card.

     After that everything else fell into place.  I used Real Red Cardstock as the card base and also as the base for the heart.  I stamped the heart onto a scrap of Real Red Cardstock using Versamark and Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder to make an embossed design that I cut out with the large heart from the Hearts a Flutter Framelits set.  Then I stamped the greeting onto the vellum only of the Gold Vellum Designer Paper using Real Red Classic Ink.  The ink does not stick to the gold foil!  I did have to adjust the layout of the designer paper so that there was a space on which to stamp the greeting.  But I didn't lose too much paper doing that.  The final touch was a layer of Gold Foil behind the Gold Vellum paper and a piece of gold foil punched with the Small Heart Punch to accent the larger heart.

     There are two pieces of this sketch that didn't quite come through in this design.  For one thing I just couldn't bear to cut a notch into the end of the goil foil strip.  I didn't think it would look very nice, and I didn't want to have to waste any of that gold foil just to prove myself right.  And then there's that little strip that runs perpendicular to the large strip.  With the dots on the Gold Vellum, I decided there was enough on this card for my taste so I left it off.  Gee, I hope they don't kick me off the Design Team!!  (Probably not.)

     I had a bit more fun making this card than I usually do just because there was a puzzle to solve, and I like solving puzzles almost as much as I like making greeting cards!  I hope whatever you do to have fun occasionally includes some puzzles to solve.  That definitely makes it better!

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