Color Challenge & Love You Much

Yikes, 2 posts in one day! But I checked out today's color challenge over at Splitcoaststampers (CC193), and it sounded like a great color combination. I also have Valentine cards on my mind, since I've been playing with my brand new Love You Much from Stampin' Up! The colors were Real Red, Basic Black and Kraft - perfect for my Valentine groove!

But wait - I was flipping through an issue of Simple Scrapbooking last night, and there was an article claiming that circles are *hot* right now. Hmmm. One of the contributors had a very cool scrapbook page where she cut these circles from foam and used them on her page. Hmmm.

  

So all of these ideas just kind of came out in this card. There are parts that I love and parts that I don't love, but don't know if I'll go back to recreate it or not. The circles (love 'em) were tedious and time consuming. Maybe I got them out of my system!

The heart is NOT made from patterned paper. It's Kraft paper, to which I adhered very thin circles made from Real Red & Basic Black. How'd I do that? First, I punched circles on scrap paper with a 1 1/4" circle punch. Then, I turned my 1 3/8" circle punch upside down, centered the smaller, punched-out hole inside of the punch & punched again. That gave me those skinny skinny loops. I ran them through my Xyron machine and adhered them to the Kraft paper (again, tedious - and sticky!).

I cut the heart out using an *old* Sizzix die I had in my stash. Now the heart is so bold and graphic in nature, I hated to junk it up, so wanted to go with minimal embellishments. It's also so big I didn't know where to stick a sentiment, and didn't know if I'd have one to fit. Good thing my new stamp set Love You Much was staring me in the face - it's got that very small 'friend to friend' sentiment. Punched it with the Word Window punch and layered a red one behind for a little pop. Looking at it now, I think I'd add a 5/8" Real Red grosgrain under the heart. What would you change? Give me some feedback on this one!

Recipe: (stamped image copyright Stampin' Up! 1990-2008)
Paper: Basic Black, Real Red, Kraft
Ink: Basic Black
Stamps: Love you Much
Accessories: Big Shot, Sizzix large heart die, 1 1/4" & 1 3/8" circle punches, Xyron Machine, Word Window punch

Comments

[PAT(mspfd)]

This is an outstanding design! LOVE IT!! Super card.

[Alison]

Wow.... your effort was worth it! Good job!