WWC191 – Charlotte’s “All About Occasions” Challenge

It’s Watercooler Wednesday time! You might have noticed that I’ve been away from the challenge for a while. Heidi kindly allowed me to take a month off to recover and try to get back on track with my projects following my illness. Now I’ve returned, and I’m even hosting today’s All About Occasions challenge!

This project is a bit of a special one – my brother and his fiancée are getting married next summer. I made these Save The Dates for them – over 50 of them!

The planning process took a little while. We went through a few prototype ideas to work out what style to go for – you can see some of the ideas here, here and here. Once we had a rough idea, colour scheme, and all the required stamps made I got started creating.

I worked through an element at a time rather than doing each card individually from start to finish. First I wrote and printed all the information panels for the back of the card, which mentioned names, date and location. I haven’t shown those here for privacy reasons.

After printing I trimmed all the back panels to the correct size, which after some experimenting I decided was 5″ square. I also trimmed down the front panels, which were blank at this stage, then finally trimmed the slightly larger (5 1/4″) blue panels to which they would be attached. Once everything was cut down I used my We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper to round all the corners on each of the panels.

The next step was the stamping. I planned out the design on a piece of scrap paper cut to the right size and used that as a template so that I knew where to place each stamp.

Using my MISTI was a big help in the stamping process. I first lined up the sentiment stamp, from Mama Elephant’s Invitation Wishes, and stamped with VersaCraft Midnight ink onto all of my front panels.

Next I lined up the solid base layer of the flower from Hero Arts’ Stamp & Cut Flowers and stamped with Ocean Waves ink onto each panel. I followed up with the detail layer in Aqualicious.

I then masked the flower to add the other stamped elements, making sure to move the mask to the next panel each time. I got through a few masks for this process. I used Lavender Fields, Lagoon, Caribbean Sky, Deep Iris, and Volcano Lake inks for these elements. I also stamped a much simpler cluster to finish off the back panel of the card too.

Once I had all the panels fully stamped and ready to go I started the assembly process. I first applied double-sided tape to all the front and back panels. I then one at a time removed the backing paper from the front panels, lined up on the blue panel, and stuck in place. Once they were all done I repeated the process with the back panels, making sure I had the correct orientation for all of them. Initially I was taking the backing off the tape by hand but I switched to using my tweezers when I realised the repetitive sliding of the tape backing against the skin under my nail was starting to cut me!

When everything was adhered into place I did a final check through, recounted to make sure I had enough, and the cards were ready!

I had fun making these cards but it was also a stressful process. I should have allowed myself more time to do them. It took a lot longer than I’d anticipated! I should learn from that and start working on the invitations sooner, but with everything else I’ve got going on I’ve yet to properly get to them!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Creatalicious Challenges – Anything Goes

Crafter’s Castle – Anything Goes

Digi Choosday – Anything Goes

Pause Dream Enjoy – Anything Goes

Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Charlotte (that’s me!)

Crystal

Gail

Heidi

Helen

Kath

Marsha

Tristan