Love Card - For Valentine's Day or anytime

I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day.  I meant to post this earlier in the day but I got busy with some projects and didn't sit down to write it up until evening.  I am close to figuring out a way to make a cut that has been very tricky to figure out...more about that later.

 

This is a special Valentine but could be used for other occasions too.  I used mirror cardstock for the heart which is very difficult to photograph effectively.

Here are the pieces of the card.  It is a simple design made more elegant with the glitter and mirror cardstock.  The A2 card base is Papertrey Ink dark chocolate - I like pink and brown together.  The heart paper is from K & Company - Kelly Panacci Valentine - cut at 5 1/4 x 4 inches.  The red mirror cardstock is DCWV from the Citrus Cardstock Stack and the white glitter cardstock is also DCWV.

 

I designed the card with Design Studio.  The card base and the pink layer are just guides to help me see how to size the heart and floral decorations.  I do not cut these from the file.  I used the heart from George but altered the shape slightly to fit the floral pieces.

Here is the floral spray I used - they look a bit like lily of the valley.  The size was about 2 1/2 inches - I adjusted it with the "handles" in Design Studio to 2.561 inches.

The "Love" sentiment is from Martha Stewart Seasonal Cake Art.  I really like the word art on all of the Martha Stewart cartridges - it is great for card makers as well as cake bakers!

At the 1 1/4 inch height the word is far too wide to fit in the heart, so I used the "handles" to adjust the size to 1.959 inches to fit nicely.

 Once I had my elements sized appropriately, I moved them to one mat to set up the cutting.  I label the tabs with the color and size of cardstock needed for each cut.  In this case, I put them on separate mats so I could change the blade and pressure settings since I planned to use vinyl for the heart.  I made one screen shot to post to show the placement.

I originally planned to use some of the red glitter vinyl for the card but I decided it was too flashy and did not have the elegant look I wanted.  I'll be able to use the heart I cut on another project.

When I cut the DCWV glitter cardstock I use blade depth 6, high pressure and multi cut 2 times.  Sometimes one cut will work but I prefer to do the second cut to get clean edges.  Occasionally, I need to do a third cut.  I cut the mirror cardstock with blade 5, high pressure and speed - there is no need to multicut.

I added all of the glitter elements to the red heart.  You need to be careful with your adhesive as it is difficult to remove marks from the mirror cardstock.  If you get extra adhesive showing you can try using a gum eraser to pick it up and polish the cardstock with a photo polishing cloth.

I added foam circles to give a little more dimension to the card.

Just that slight elevation adds a lot to the card and it is still easy to mail.

 I think the slight gap between the heart and the white stem that allows the pink cardstock to show through is interesting.

The mirror finish on the cardstock is so pretty - I tried another photo with different lighting to try to show you the effect.

I broke my usual rule of using only one or two cartridges - sometimes you find just the right thing in a lot of different places.

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day - we had a quiet evening at home with a special home cooked dinner.  We'll be eating lots of restaurant meals on the cruise so we weren't very motivated to go out tonight!

Subscribe to Capadia Designs