Sharing the love

with my youngest niece who's attending college several hours from home.  O is a wild child when it comes to color so I knew this wouldn't 'scare' her.  She's one of those who wears socks that don't match.  Always has been and hope she always will.  Definitely hears a different drummer than most.

I smushed the blue and purple distress inks onto the Nordic stamp, misted lightly with water then carefully rubbed the watercolor cardstock over the stamp.  Heat set.  Edged with brown distress ink.  Whatever was left on my craft sheet I misted with water then placed the card in it and let the colors run.  Heat set.  My PPMist sprayer dnesn't work so I flung droplets directly from it onto the cardstock.

From cardstock scraps I cut out the heart and letter.  More PPMist was flung onto them.  Heat set.  To the heart I pounced embossing ink on it in a random pattern and sprinkled it with the embossing powder; heat set. 

Using the stencil I pounced more embossing ink through the word and used more embossing powder.  Heat set.  With a small sponge applicator I pounced red ink through the '14' and 'XO'.  Red dots around the border were created using the Candy Apple Red distress marker.

The bird (regular size, not mini) was stamped in Jet Black archival ink twice on a watercolor cardstock scrap.  I always color my images with at least 3 from each color family to create shadow and depth.  I saw a really neat tip on somebody's blog re: cutting out the extra pieces; sure wish I had written it down so I could share the source with you.  (If anyone reading this knows the source, please share it with me so I can update this entry.)  The tip was to cut out the die(s) from scrap cardstock then place the negative over the stamped image.  Tape in place; put the die(s) into the positive space and tape in place.  Cut with your machine of choice.  It may seem like extra work but if you have trouble with your dies moving on you or just not being as centered as you would like, this makes that all go away.  Extra steps but SOOOO worth it for me.  I ended up using the positive scrap as a purple shadow under my bird.  I did use a ball roller to round out the wing then added a bit of foam tape to keep it dimensional.  You can always keep these negative die cuts with your dies for future use.

Here's what I used to create my Valentine..........
Sizzix:  Bird Crazy, Scribbles & Splat, Word Play
Stampers Anonymous: stamps (Bird Crazy, Plaid & Nordic); stencil (Valentine)
Ranger: distress markers (Candied Apple, Fossilized Amber, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Carved Pumpkin, Rusty Hinge, Broken China, Mermaid Lagoon); distress inks (Gathered Twigs, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Salty Ocean, Dusty Concord); Jet Black archival ink; Antiquities Chinese Red embossing powder; embossing ink; Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist
cardstock: watercolor paper, blue, red and purple cardstock

Happy Valentine's Day, O!