CELEBRATING 43 YEARS

The date, June 2, 1973, was a very special one for me. You see, my husband, Pat, and I were married 43 years ago on that date.

As always, I wanted to create a very special anniversary card for him. I loved the romantic combination of the Bloomin' Heart Thinlits and the Happy Heart embossing folder. I tried several different papers and prints for the large heart. Being that the color palette of our long-ago wedding was orange and white (remember, it was the 70s!), I opted for that same color combo for my card for Pat. 

I ended up using Vellum Cardstock for the large heart. It was beautiful, but somewhat plain and unadorned and unfinished-looking. It took me several days of trial and error to finally come up with my end result.

For the focal point, I stamped the little coordinating flowers in Tangerine Tango onto the Vellum Cardstock, then proceeded to cut them out with the Framelits. I adhered them to their spots on the large heart, but they still seemed unfinished. Linda, just let it go for now.

The large heart was begging for something more. But what? 

I stamped the heart from the Bloomin' Love stamp set -- the same place I got the little flower stamps 

-- onto more of the Vellum Cardstock. There was not a matching Framelit to cut out this heart, so I fussy cut the edges. When I laid that heart atop the large heart, it blended in way too much. 

The fix for that was to adhere the fussy cut heart to a scrap of Whisper White cardstock. I was careful in attaching the vellum heart to the cardstock and did it with three Glue Dots placed under each of the large flowers. It was easy to cover up the presence of the Glue Dots with strategically placed Basic Pearls. I then fussy cut the cardstock around the vellum heart, leaving a small white border. I simply adhered this heart to the center of the large heart, giving it the appearance of a big fluffy old-fashioned Valentine. To continue the pearly effect, I added pearls to the four flowers that showed at the edges of the large heart.

When I embossed the Tangerine Tango cardstock with the Happy Hearts, I did not like the stark look of the hearts. After debating how to soften the hearts background, I finally hit upon gently sponging with white pigment ink over the raised hearts. 

I was very pleased with these results, because it reminded me a bit of the bridesmaids' dresses, which were orange and white batiste over solid orange.

The final card has quite a lot of dimension -- and love -- in it.

The photo below is a picture of me with my sister, Diane, before the wedding. You can see what I mean when I wrote about the card resembling the bridesmaid's dress. 

P.S. My mom made both my wedding dress and my veil/headpiece as well as my sister's dress. 

Anniversary

Smiles.