Thursday, April 22, 2010

Valentine's Day Cards (Slightly Delayed)

This post is rather silly seeing that May is almost here, but honestly if I don't post it now it will never happen. 

I was commissioned to make Valentine's Day cards for a local business as part of a promotion they were running. After a few days of hard work 130 cards were produced in 3 different designs. Here is a peek of what I did.

The first card was the "sweet" card. I made all of the cards using Fabriano Medioevalis paper, which is a super nice quality paper. It has a deckle-edge and feels amazing and so soft. Step one was creating an image, and I came up with the bunny sniffing some flowers. I drew the image, photocopied it, and then printed it using my nifty  Gocco Printer. To jazz it up a little I added a sparkly heart embellishment. I think it turned out rather cute. On the inside I printed "Love is Sweet" in pink.
Sweet Indeed


Close-up sniff


The next card was my take on a more "masculine" card (or whatever that means in reference to Valentine's Day.) It is a pun, which to me is the essence of Valentine's Day. 


See what I did there?


I used a heart shaped punch on wood grain printed paper to create the hearts. The blue paper is just scrapbook paper cut to fit the card and adhered using Glue Dots. I prefer to use Glue Dots on paper projects because you don't get the rippling that happens with more wet adhesives like Elmer's Glue. In addition the Glue Dots are cleaner to work with so you don't get glue all over everything you are working on. The border is made of ribbon and also adhered using Glue Dots. The "Wood you be mine?" text was printed on address labels. Address labels are a fantastic trick. You can use the opaque ones or to look really slick use the transparent ones like the one below.

I was a Creative Writing minor in college


Detail shot for the fans


I used a Glue Dot Pop Up to secure the heart to the card.  These are basically thick double-sided stickers that give height to your object. You can use one for a little height or go crazy stacking them for even more lift. 

The last card I created was the "romantic" card.


Seduced yet?


The background and red of the heart were created using scrapbook paper. The map is actually taken from on old road atlas. I love this idea because I always have old atlases or maps hanging around from trips and other activities. I cut a heart in the map using a paper punch and mounted the red paper behind it. That was all secured to the card using a Glue Dot Pop Up to add some interest.


Inner text- nothing witty to say


I printed the text in the transparent address labels I mentioned earlier. They are barely noticeable in person and only a little visible if you decide to take a really close-up picture. This technique works well when you a.) Don't want to hand write the text b.) Can't send the card through a computer printer.


Drama


I would like to wish all of you a Happy Valentine's Day about 2.5 months late! On a side note, I do custom cards for ANY occasion. On occasion I will even post them before it is embarrassingly late.

4 comments:

Workshop Cooker said...

AMAZING! These turned out great and the pictures really help them to shine as well. I hope you get commissioned for another holiday. Love to see what you could do with Thanksgiving!

Molly said...

I think the last one is my favorite. Great job!

I'm Jenn said...

Jessica!!! I'm in L.O.V.E.(An appropriate feeling given the holiday) with you and your fabulous cards!!!

Hellen H. said...

Those are gorgeous!!! Last one is probably my favorite too. Sweet job, bro!