30th Anniversary Card

Tomorrow is our 30th wedding anniversary. I cannot think where the years have gone! Sometimes it seems like yesterday, and yet we are rapidly approaching the year when I will be able to say that I have been married to my lovely hubby for half my life!

So – today, I made him a card. I departed from my usual thought that man cards never have flowers on them, and decided to celebrate my hubby’s love for our garden and its flowers.

I have been so inspired by the work of Diana Taylor of Velvet Moth Studio that I took a leaf out of her book, having been completely bowled over by her recent tag in browns and creams. She used a flower stamp set which she recommended to me a while back, and today was the first time I had used it.

The background had been sitting in my backgrounds folder for several years. It was a bit of an experiment when I made it and I had never found a use for it, but thought it would be ideal for this card. It was made using a Tim Holtz Texture Fades embossing folder with a dark brown Core’dinations card which I had sanded after embossing, to reveal the paler colour underneath. I had then added some clear embossing powder around the edges. It is pretty dark and grungey and I thought this would offset any femininity that might attach to the flowers.

This is the Heartfelt Creations Botanical Rose stamp set, as recommended by Diana.

I stamped the flowers twice on a piece of scrap white card, using sepia archival ink.

When I bought the stamp set, I decided not to buy the accompanying Botanical Wings die set because I thought the shapes were simple enough to fussy-cut and I could save myself the money. However, after spending quite a long time fussy-cutting all those flowers and making my hand tired, I thought it would be worth investing in the die set as well, so I have now ordered it. As well as dies exactly matching these flowers, there is also a butterfly included in the die set and one can never have enough butterflies!

After cutting out the flowers, I inked them with Gathered Twigs distress ink, using a home-made blending tool.

I then hand-embossed the flowers using two sizes of embossing tools on a piece of fun foam.

The final touch was to add some gold gilding wax to the petals.

I found a couple of leaf trails in my stash which I’d cut ages ago with Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine (must get her going again… I’ve made a start but need time to concentrate on that particular job!), and after colouring them lightly with some Old Paper distress stain, glued them down onto the background piece, along with a few strands of sisal (also recommended by Diana), using Scotch Quick-Dry adhesive.

Using the same glue, I layered the flower pieces and stuck them down over the leaf trails and sisal, and added a bit more gilding wax.

I mounted the piece on a piece of cream card and then onto an A4 white card base folded in half and cut down to 7 1/2 inches tall. I inked the edges with Gathered Twigs distress ink and spattered it with water, blotting it off to leave paler marks. I repeated this process on the inside of the card and stamped a “Happy Anniversary” sentiment inside, using sepia archival ink.

The final touch was to add a few spots of gunmetal Stickles glitter glue to the centre of each flower.

I am happy that I was able to make this entire card from stuff already in my stash, and using scrap card for the flowers. I’m also delighted that I have finally found a use for that background piece!

All ready for tomorrow. Talk about short deadlines… I hope he likes it!

(P.S. I think he’s forgotten it’s our anniversary tomorrow… lol lol!!! Shall I forgive him?!!)