Hello, hello!
Welcome back to the blog! Today I’ve got another Valentine’s card for you, this time focusing on the Heart Chain stencil from Simon Says Stamp! I got this stencil last year when I bought the Valentine’s exclusive card kit from Simon Says Stamp, but I didn’t get around to using it. This year I was determined!!! Just as a little disclaimer, if you have this stencil or want to pick it up, make sure you have Pixi Spray! I don’t so I struggled a bit and ended up slightly bending part of the stencil since the lines are thin, I think Pixi Spray would have made things a lot easier!
I really wanted to use Spun Sugar, Milled Lavender, and Seedless Preserves Distress Oxides for this, so I made a linear blend of them on a 4.25 x 5.5-inch panel of Concord & 9th white cardstock. The panel turned out SO cute!!! Things were blended a little bit lighter than I usually would have since I was trying not to accidentally bend my stencil too much more, but I love how it turned out. At this point, my overthinking brain kicked in and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with a greeting.
After playing around with a couple options (the XOXO die from last week and the ‘love & hugs’ die from Concord & 9th), I settled on using the Grapefruit cabin die from C9 Summer Camp 2022. This is such a fun sunburst/stained glass heart die! I die cut it out of plain white cardstock and blended some Seedless Preserves on it to tie it back to the stenciling. I don’t have a huge variety of cardstock colors, so I decided to make my own so the heart would feel more cohesive, but you could use any cardstock you want! I was tempted to turn this card into a shaker card, but I wanted the sunburst part of the die to be a little more snug to the layering piece. If I had more heart dies, I’m sure I could have found a way to work it out! The new From the Heart stamp and die set from the Simon Says Stamp Kisses release would also be a great alternative here!
I decided to back the Seedless Preserves heart frame with Concord & 9th white glitter paper. This is my favorite glitter paper! I also chose to use this paper because it would contrast a bit from the white in the background panel and hopefully make things feel a little less flat. I glued the heart down on the upper third of the card, then die cut a couple small hearts out of matte gold, white glitter, and Ballet Slipper cardstock. After not being able to decide what color heart I wanted in the sunburst, I settled on gluing two down in a staggered/overlapping fashion.
Look at that glitter!! 😍
Lastly, for the sentiment I used the Valentines Vibes stamp set I raved about last week from Ellen Hutson. I thought the ‘Happy Hearts Day’ was the perfect sentiment for this card full of hearts, so I white heat embossed it on Ballet Slipper cardstock and cut it out with the coordinating die. I added the sentiment strip onto the lower third of the card front and called this card done!
I hope you like this card! I feel like I lost my way a bit in the middle there, but I think the end result is just fine! Thanks for stopping by the blog, I hope to catch you next time with more Valentine’s inspiration!
