Our good friends welcomed their second daughter, Leona, on Valentine’s Day! They were visiting in Colorado this week, so it was the perfect time to (finally) give them their card! I love the stork images from Avery Elle’s Special Delivery set & knew I wanted to use the flying stork against a blended sky background.
When the Stitched Cloud Backdrops from Lawn Fawn were released, I knew I had to have one! Although I wasn’t sure which one to get as they are offered in both portrait and landscape orientations, and I can’t justify the need for both. I knew I had to get creative and I decided on the landscape die, figuring that I could still use it for top-fold cards with some altering, as well as landscape cards. Almost any card I’m thinking about (that would include these stitched clouds) usually has some kind of land or water to ground the other images, so I knew I could still get the clouds on at least the upper 2/3 of my card by using the landscape die and not cutting the bottom edge. Does that make sense? Let me try to explain what I did.
I cut some smooth Bristol down to 4.5″ x 6″ and blended Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress oxide inks onto it. (These colors are from the first set of oxide inks – I have pre-ordered the second set & cannot wait to get them!) I then lined up the stitched cloud die near the top of the blended panel and ran it through my Big Shot making sure to stop and reverse it back out before the bottom edge passed under the rollers. I wanted to get as much of the stitched clouds cut into the paper as possible without actually cutting off the bottom. With the design I was imagining, it probably would have been fine cut off, but just in case I figured I’d leave the bottom on. This left me with a piece of paper that still needed to be cut into it’s final A2 size, so I then used the second largest Nesting Infinity Rectangles die from Hero Arts. Here’s how it came out after those two passes through the Big Shot.
You can see where the bottom edge of the landscape stitched cloud die left a slight indentation in the paper, but did not cut through. Here’s a view of the back.
I then took another piece of smooth Bristol and blended some Peeled Paint Distress Oxide ink onto the bottom edge and then used one of the Stitched Hillside Borders from Lawn Fawn to cut a grassy hill sloping upwards to the right. I then lined up the top of the hill along the bottom of the stitched clouds to figure out where to place that same Hero Arts rectangle die. After running it through the Big Shot, it gave me a little green hill that fit perfectly along the bottom of the cloud panel.
I added some water droplets with the Distress sprayer and blotted it dry with a paper towel after letting the water sit for about 20 seconds. This caused the inks to oxidize and gave the sky and hill some interest.
After the pieces were completely dry, I stamped the “congratulations” sentiment on the hill with Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink. Using my MISTI allowed me to double stamp for a nice solid image. The hill was then adhered to the bottom of the cloud panel with some scor-tape. I added some Moonshine confetti around the sentiment with small drops of multi medium matte adhesive.
Next it was time to work on my stork image. I stamped the flying stork and the empty bag onto some smooth white cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I colored in the stork image with the following Copic markers:
Legs: YR18
Beak: Y38
“It’s a girl” was stamped on the bag in the same Wilted Violet Distress Oxide ink. I cut out the stork and bag as one connected image and popped it up with some foam squares. I also added some sparkle with a Spectrum Noir Clear Overlay pen to the pink stripes on the stork’s sweater, colored around the “it’s a girl” sentiment with a Wink of Stella Glitter White pen and went over the eye with a black Glaze pen.
The open hearts were stamped on the sky background with Hero Arts Raspberry Jam ink, and some Moonshine confetti pieces were adhered on the hill with multi medium matte. After stamping the banner on the inside in Hero Arts Passion Flower ink, I then used Concord & 9th’s Sophisticated Script and Sophisticated Script Uppercase to stamp baby Leona’s name in Hero Arts Ultra Pink ink. The hearts were stamped in the same Raspberry Jam ink used for the hearts on the front of the card.
And with that, the card was finished! I decided to use a vellum envelope since it was going to be hand delivered.
