This month I re-entered the MetaFilter card swap to force myself back into creating cards. I knew that I wanted my June cards to have rainbows on them because of Pride and also who doesn’t love rainbows? They mean many things.
I used to watch cardmaking Youtubers but since many of them are brand ambassadors with affiliate links, many of the videos featured product instead of technique. I kept falling into the trap of believing I needed to purchase new materials every time I wanted to make a card. New stamps, new dies, new tools, new cardstock. But I already have enough crafting supplies to make cards for many months to come, and my hand-cranked die cutter works fine.
(But I am a woman of contradiction — I have an idea for July cards that might require metallic ink. We’ll see.)
Those creators also make very intricate cards that aren’t suited for banging out 15 of them at a time. (I sign up to send 10 to the card swap gang, one to a friend who loves cards, ruin at least one, and keep the rest for another month.)
That’s why I search for inspiration from Pinterest. This one caught my eye.
I knew I already had a die that featured a stack of hearts and I knew I could paint a passable watercolor rainbow.
The initial plan was: paint rainbow backgrounds, use the die to cut the hearts out of the front panel, and then tape the watercolor spectrum behind the hole in the card. This would allow the rainbow to peek out through the heart shapes.
Like so!
And then do it 14 more times.
But! When I ran the die and cardstock through my diecutting machine, I realized that the die cut out all of the 14 individual hearts AND a one-piece outline of all of the hearts. So gluing the rainbow behind the opening would look strange, since there would be nothing to indicate that the shape is a stack of hearts. It would look like a rainbow blob.
To get around that, I used the die again on black cardstock, saved the 196 black hearts for a rainy day1, and glued the black outlines to the rainbow paintings.
Like so! It reminds me of tie dye or stained glass.
Next, I glued those pieces to the inside of the front panel, precisely positioning them to peek out of the precut shape.
I used invisible tape to secure the watercolored panel to the cardstock. If I were more pro, I’d have cut out white cardstock to layer OVER that oval shape. But I’m an amateur. If you copy this design do that.
The inside sentiment simply states, “LOVE.”
Because now more than ever, we need love.
- I see emo Valentines Day cards in my future. ↩︎
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