LOTV - You are my sunshine birthday card

Hi blogging friends

Happy New Year!  Boy it sure is hot here where I live!  Today it was 39 deg C (102 deg F) and tomorrow it is meant to be 42 deg C (108 deg F) - uggh!  I am so glad we have air-conditioning and I tend to do more crafting in summer because I am inside the house alot more keeping out of the awful heat.  Plus we live in a bushfire-prone area so we need to stay home on really hot days to keep an eye on things. 

Today I am sharing a card that I made for my American sister-in-law's birthday:

My SIL is one of my biggest fans and a great encourager to my cardmaking - and one of the loveliest ladies you could ever meet:  so kind, caring and enthusiastic.

The image is from Lili of the Valley (UK) and was stamped onto watercolour cardstock using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink and coloured with Lyra + Faber-Castell watercolour pencils.  I lightly chalked around the image using blue chalk for the sky.  

My process for cardmaking is to choose the image then the papers so I can match up the colouring with my designer papers.  I couldn't get the pink shade quite right on my flowers nor the tealy-aqua - and I was getting very frustrated and the flowers ended up looking very ho-hum because you can't fiddle with watercolour paper too much or it starts to pill.  I almost threw the image out when I had a sudden flash of inspiration - paper-piecing!  Yep, that technique that I keep forgetting about!

So I re-stamped the image onto another sheet of matching pink paper and tealy-aqua paper and cut out the flowers.  They were VERY fiddly to cut out but I just took my time and used some of those super-magnifying glasses that you can buy from the shops so I could see what I was doing - and once I had cut them out, I went around the edges with a black pen to hide any imperfections with my cutting.  Yay - image saved and I was no longer grumpy!

I attached the flowers to my image using Tombow Mono Aqua glue which gave me a little bit of time to move the flowers into their exact position before pressing down firmly.  I added a bit of orange and yellow to the flower centres using Tombow pens plus a little bit of grey under the flower centres to give some depth to the flowers.  Here is a close-up:

The sentiment is also by Lili of the Valley from their set - General Greetings Small.

I used an EK Success Arrows Border punch to punch tiny little hearts (ie: they are the leftover punchies which look like tiny hearts) from the pink + tealy-aqua paper and glued them around the sentiment.  I added Stampin' Up Dazzling Details glitter glue to these hearts, the teddy's cheeks, all the flower centres and all over the butterfly.

The main image panel was attached to 2 sheets of designer paper and were trimmed to 1/8" and 1/16" respectively using my Perfect Layers Tools.

The pink and green on the card base is also designer paper and these were trimmed to 1/8".  I tied on some Blossom Iridescent twine and added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.  I love this twine because it has a sparkly thread through it and it's so pretty. 

I glued on 3 pink Sparklets using Glossy Accents.  I kept the card very simple as I usually do plus I didn't want to cover up the pretty floral base paper.  Lastly, I added my card front to a white cardstock base using Stampin' Up Fuse Fast adhesive which is super-strong.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Splitcoaststampers - Technique Lover's Challenge TLC485 of Paper Piecing Revisited - which is from a while ago but there are no time limits on SCS Challenges

Cute Card Thursday - Challenge #354 - Anything Goes

Finished size is 4-5/8" x 4-5/8" or 117mm x 117mm.

Thanks for stopping by and for any comments that you care to leave - they are really appreciated :-)

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Lili of the Valley (UK) You are my Sunshine ST378 + General Greetings - Small ST063

Ink:  Ranger Archival Jet Black

Designer Paper:  First Edition Spring Drop 6" x 6" pad

Accessories:  Perfect Layers Tools, Ranger Distress Watercolour cardstock, Kaisercraft blue chalk, SU Fuse Fast adhesive, Tombow Mono Aqua glue, black pen, The Twinery Blossom Iridescent twine, Fray Stop, Lyra + Faber-Castell watercolour pencils, Tombow pens, #2 round paintbrush, Fiskars Stamp Press, Glossy Accents, pink Sparklets (EBay), SU Dazzling Details glitter glue, paper-tole scissors, white cardstock (card base)

Punches:  EK Success Arrows Border