Eclipse of the Heart

Yesterday was my wedding anniversary, and yes, we got married on a Friday.  I have been wanting to try an Eclipse card.  If you are not familiar with the technique, the idea is you die cut letters, or in my case shapes, out of your image and then put them back in place popped up.  Right now I am seeing a lot of cards using letters, but I like to put hearts and flowers on my romantic cards for my husband, so I went with hearts instead spelling out the word love.  He knows I love him, right?

First I want to talk about challenges.  I started this blog five years ago this month, so I could participate in the Mojo Monday challenge because I wanted to give myself "homework assignments" and grow as a cardmarker.  My cards have definitely evolved as the number of challenges I follow has grown.  I have just started following two new for me ones:  The As You Like It Challenge asks you to make a choice between two items, themes, etc. or maybe pick a favorite something such as paper and then explain why you made that choice.  This week the challenge is ribbon or flowers.  For an anniversary card that is easy.  My husband has always given me roses for no reason except that they are pretty and he thinks I will enjoy them.  Even in our starving student days he would sometimes stop by a florist and buy a single rose.  It should come as no surprise that most of the anniversary and I love you cards I make for him include roses.

The second challenge I have begun following, Happy Little Stampers, has several challenges each month that run for the entire month so you have plenty of time to work on your entry(ies).  They are designed to "inspire you to create using techniques or products that may be new to you or just a refresher on using them."  Each month there is a Watercolor (or any medium using water), CAS, Christmas, Mixed Media, Anything Goes With a Die Cut, and ATC challenge.  This card is for the Die Cut challenge.

If you like pink, with October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, a number of challenges including The Sisterhood of Crafters, Craft Rocket Challenges, Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge want to see projects featuring it.  I am also entering this in the Stamps & Fun = Creativity challenge to make something "non cute."

Now back to the card:

I started with a stamp from the Lady Rose set by Tom Holtz whose designs are often messy with a lot of texture and a vintage feel.  This is what it looks like stamped with black ink on white and dark brown on ivory paper:

When colored with your favorite medium, the color of the ink will dominate when using a dark ink to stamp.  I chose to stamp it in Close to My Heart's Champagne ink which is a light beige.  This allowed me to use my Prismacolor pencils to color over the stamping.  Any beige showing through just added to the muted, vintage feel I was aiming for.  While I had the Champagne ink out I sponged in circles around the edges of my paper to "age" it.  

Once I was satisfied with my image it was time to cut the hearts.   This is easiest using dies which  you can position on the image however looks best to you before cutting.  I imagine you could use a Cricut type machine to cut the word on plain paper, leave the cut and background together and then create your image so the raised sections will coordinate nicely with die cut.  I cut the smallest heart first and then the larger one.  Some people pop up their die cuts with foam tape.  I prefer to stack multiple dies cuts to get more of a chip board effect.  Again, this is where dies shine.  Each one will be exactly the same.  The one complication for this design was the carved out part in the large heart.  After each was cut I used the original heart to trace the carved out spot so it would be in the same place, allowing the smaller heart to fit in perfectly.  I used five layers of pink cardstock to pop up the large heart and seven for the small one.

Lastly I embossed the sentiment in gold, added a few clear Nuvo Crystal Drops for balance and mounted the panel onto a piece of pink cardstock.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi