Thursday Dream Schemes--Love in the New Year

Our challenge this week was "Love in the New Year". I just adore so many of the love themed stencils that it was hard to choose. I finally decided to let the paper guide my decision--a Bo Bunny print that was pink, red and ivory. The red swirls in the paper reminded me of the swirly heart stencil LL 3010, so I pasted this with red glossy paste on ivory cardstock.

Then, I needed a sentiment. I chose LM 276, which is a larger stencil. I liked this design, with its cute little hearts imbedded into the capital letters, but I still wanted the beautiful swirled heart to be the focal point. This posed a problem because of the relative sizes of each of the stencils, therefore it was--Shrink Plastic to the Rescue! I roughed up the white shrink plastic and then stencilled it with Red Pepper Adirondack Pigment Ink. For Kate, who asked previously (I just read it today, sorry) about how I know where to cut the shrink plastic, most of them are easy to find the edges of once stencilled. This one, I stencilled the red right over the edge of the stencil and then "eyeballed" the border size as I cut it. My Big Bite set in the largest hole setting created the holes that I would use to affix the plastic. I shrunk it with my embossing heat tool. It turned a slight ivory, which fit my color scheme perfectly.

This card was cut to about 3 1/2" by 5 1/2" and is folded at the top and distressed on the edges with Antique Linen Distress inks. I cut around the pattern on the pink paper and adhered it to the base. (It was raising up when I took the picture--sorry for the shadow.)

I attached the shrink plastic to the heart with both Glue Dots and small pink seed beads. I then used the beads to embellish around the heart. I put the whole heart on foam tape when I attached it.

I wasn't sure about this card when I started, but the color scheme really grew on me. With the beading, which I realize is difficult to see in the photos, and the almost lacey looking edge, the whole thing took on a sweet, old fashioned look that I quite like now.