Getting on with the Valentines

     Well, despite some shopping at Hobby Lobby and JoAnne's, I was still able to finish my DS's Valentine card. Very tricky this year, because he's in collage and likes to put up his cards on his bulletin board, so I had to keep it non-mushy and non-embaressing, as well as mature ;- ) That's an awful lot to ask of a mom! So I decided, no pink or red on the outside. I have picked up a lot of cool, free Photoshop brushes, at a few sites so I took some time yesterday, just going over them. One, I liked for my son, was from a site called photoshopfreebrushes.com. Who'd of guessed. I applied a few effect to it such as, chrome and wow chrome beveled edge to make it look metallic. I had the original layer on top and made that layer partly transparent for the effects to show. I also add one of the texture backgrounds that comes with Photoshop Elements. I then printed this and used it as the top layer of the card. On this I attached the word Hugs cut from the Smiley Cards cart on the Gypsy. It was cut at 1 1/4 inches from blue DCWV paper. I bowed it slightly and attached it with shiny heart brads and silver dull brads from Spare Parts. I also added faux stitching with a black glaze pen.

     On the inside, I started with a black mat. I made the sentiment digitally using the font Tabitha, which comes on Macintosh computers. After that, I remembered an idea I had while shopping, to put a list of the reasons we love him, in his card. So, I decided to make a tag and find a way to squeeze that in too. I stamped the tag with a clear stamp by Autumn Leaves called Hand Drawn Journaling Panels by Katie Pertiet with Big and Bossy and clear embossing powder. I then rubbed rubbed Ranger's Broken China ink over it and cleaned the excess off of the embossed areas. I wrote on it with a black glaze pen. I made 2 hearts out of Core'dinations Magic Paper that was black with a red core. I cut the hearts at 1 inch with the Expression using Plantin Schoolbook using the Roly Poly feature key. I then dry embossed it with Swiss Dots and sanded it so the red core would show. I used one of the hearts to help hold the tag on the card, but also attached the tag with removable tape, so he can take the tag off and save it anywhere he wants.

     What would I change? I would have planned for the tag better to begin with and moved the writing  over inside the card. Or... maybe I would have planned a pocket in the card for the tag to fit in and the it could be slipped out. Though I do like it as an element in the card, maybe I'll shorten the twine a bit yet and attach the twine across the top. The inside isn't quite right, but I like the card. I might have been able to make the digital writing narrower and that would have balanced the tag better. Ah, that sounds better.
Well, thanks again for visiting. Please give me your feedback. I'd love to hear from you.