MDS Monday - Valentine Challenge

Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m thrilled to announce that I’m a Design Team member for Utah Divas International “MDS Monday Challenges”. This week’s challenge is a Valentine Card. My inspiration came from the Occasions Mini Catalog, the card at the top of page 30. I love the simplicity of the card combined with the sewing and texture details. I would never try creating this card IRL. I do not sew – not at all. Yet, I love the special touch it adds to this card.

That’s where MDS (My Digital Studio) comes to the rescue. I can sew on a digital card. How cool is that?! I used various DSP papers to give texture to my punched hearts. And I added a little embellishment to accent each heart. I love this quote from the All Holidays stamp brush set. Here are a few tricks I used on this card:

• I punched all my hearts and moved them to the left side of the card. Then I selected all the hearts and used the “Align, On Center” feature to easily get the precise alignment.
• I noticed that the “Real Red Script DSP” and “Real Red Brocade DSP” have a Real Red pattern on a lighter background. But that wouldn’t work with the design I had in mind. So I punched a duplicate heart, colored it Real Red, and placed it directly behind my DSP heart. Then I changed the Opacity of my DSP heart to about 30%. Now I have shades of Real Red for all my hearts.
• Finally, I added Drop Shadows to all the hearts. But I used different Blur and Opacity percentages for each heart. To me, that gives a more realistic 3-D look to the punches than having the same shadow on everything. (I also added Drop Shadows to all the embellishments, but I kept them pretty close to the default values since they’re so small.)

Now please check out all the other Design Team creations at Utah Divas International. Thanks for stopping by!

Card Front Recipe: Stamps- All Holidays; Paper- Real Red, Pretty In Pink, Kraft Textured CS, Real Red Brocade DSP, Real Red Script DSP, Real Red Soft Flower DSP, Real Red Small Polka Dot DSP, Very Vanilla; Ink- Real Red; Accessories- Heart Punches, Jewels, Flower Punches, Antique Brads, Button Bundle, Grosgrain Ribbon Knot, Stitching

Card Inside Recipe: Stamps- Best Wishes & More; Paper- Pretty In Pink, Kraft, Real Red Small Polka Dot DSP, Very Vanilla; Ink- Real Red; Font- CK Script; Accessories- Heart Punches, Jewels, Scallop Edge Border Punch, Square Punches