That's Life: Come Rain or Shine ~ Love With All Your Heart

Happy Monday friends and welcome to the brand new Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge!

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, our theme for this week is all about LOVE and HEARTS and the DT are also showcasing Carabelle Studio products within their projects.

I decided to create a card this week because let's face it ~ I think most of us need those very important and extremely special handmade cards at this time of year and I wanted to celebrate the feeling of love in the air! So, I used a Carabelle Studio stencil to create a subtle backdrop for a cascade of hearts that are about to be captured in an umbrella...because come rain or shine, you should love with all your heart! I also couldn't resist using the umbrella, which is something Tim knows that I'm so excited to see, umbrellas are my thing, and I've been wanting an umbrella die for a while and now I have three to choose from ~ i'm in heaven!

Let's get started ~ it's time for the brand new challenge to begin!

I began by creating the background which started life as a panel of white Heavystock card, 12.5 x 16.5cm and a smaller panel, 12.5 x 4.5cm. To add colour to both pieces of the card, I used a combination of Weathered Wood, Speckled Egg, Pumice Stone, Frayed Burlap and Old Paper Distress Spray Stains, together with Speckled Egg Oxide Spray and a touch of Vintage Photo Oxide Spray, around the edges. I usually spritz the card with a light misting of water and then apply the sprays until I'm happy with the blend. For the Vintage Photo around the edges, I sprayed the oxide ink directly onto my glass mat, spritzed with water and just dipped the edges into the inks.

To add layered detail to the background, I added some stamped imagery using the calligraphy stamp and the Registered stamp from The Poinsettia stamp set ~ this is such a useful stamp to own and it's not just for Christmas, it's one of those that can be used all year round.

I also ripped some book pages and attached these around the edges using collage medium, before then applying some Crackle Paste, dragging the paste over random areas of the inked card and allowing it to dry and the crackles to appear.

Once the card was completely dry, I inked the edges with a little Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then machine stitched a border around each panel of card, leaving loose threads of cotton thread, then I moved onto the next step ~ adding the texture through the stencil. I used the Constellation Stencil from Carabelle Studio and applied Transluscent Grit Paste through the stencil with a palette knife, applying it to the right hand side and leaving some clear areas on the left.

After carefully removing the stencil, and whilst the paste is still wet I sprinkled Speckled Egg Distress Glaze over the top and tapped away the excess. Set the card panel to one side for the paste to dry before heat embossing the glaze with a heat tool, creating this beautiful glassy effect to the background.

So, I've got my background which I matted and layered onto champagne coloured metallic kraft stash, followed by Blackout Kraft Stash. I then mounted the layers onto a black card blank and finally mounted my smaller inked panel across the card.

I now have the basic card and we can move onto the umbrella...

For this I used another of my favourite dies from Tim's recent Chapter 1 release from Sizzix ~ The Gent. I will be sharing a project that showcases all the dies from this set very soon but for today, I'm just using the umbrella.

I started by die cutting three separate umbrellas from heavystock card and then layered them together to create one solid die cut the thickness of chipboard. I painted the umbrella using Distress Paints: Black Soot for the main body and handle and Brushed Pewter on the stick

Once I was happy, I then added some shading and detail to accentuate the umbrella and also a touch of gilding wax applied over the top to give a little more shimmer.

I attached the finished umbrella to my card front using foam pads to add some height and dimension to the card, which you can see in the photo below.

The hearts are all die cut using the Falling Hearts die and cut from cardstock that I painted a vintage red colour using an application of Candied Apple Distress Paint, followed by a very light layer of Black Soot, which I applied using the dry brushing technique over the top of the red paint.

After cutting the various sized hearts, I then glazed the larger hearts. For this I used the Embossing Dabber applied over the top of each heart and then sprinkled Fired Brick Embossing Glaze over the top.

After heat embossing the glaze, I attached a cascade of hearts down the card, starting in the top left and finishing in the bottom right.

Finally, I added my quote and used a Theories Quote Chip ~ 'love with all your heart" and after sanding the edges and adding a couple of Hardware Heads, I adhered it to my card with matte collage medium.

For the finishing touches, I clipped a couple of Index Clips to either side of the panel, both painted with Distress Paints to create a rusty effect and added Hardware heads to complete them...

...and also added an Air Mail and Pointy Finger Ephemera Snippet to the top left corner.

So that see's this week's project completed and I hope you've enjoyed the walk through of how I created it! As always, if you've been inspired by anything that you see here on my blog, please just tag me on my social media or leave a message so I can pop by to take a look ~ I always love to see your work!

Don't forget that every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $25 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp and you can join in up to 5 times, which means you could have 5 chances to win. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....