Hand in Hand Forever

This week I have made and very symbolic card using the stunning and very emotive image - Hand in Hand Forever by Lynne Stansbery.  I have to admit, this was a hard image to colour and took me four attempts trying different media.  In the end I coloured the hands with my Blush Promarker and then added the shading using Faber Castell Polychromos.

I mentioned this was a very symbolic card, it is for my daughter and her husbands 6th Wedding Anniversay and paper and elements link directly to that most wonderful of days.  For the backing paper I used a photo of my daughters bouquet, well a section of a photo really hence it is rather blurred at this size but as it is backing paper the softness was rather perfect.  Two sheets were printed, one for the outside of the card and one for the inside.

 My wedding bouquet many moons ago was orchids and my precious daughter decided to have them in her bouquet too, a wonderfully sentimental thing for her to have done.  So, the card had to have orchids on it.  I die cut the shapes and coloured again with Faber Castell Polychromos.

When I make a card to celebrate my daughter and her husbands special day I always try to include elements of the colours as a special memory.  This year I have done both.  Instead of writing their names I decided to just use their initials and place these amongst a spray of pearls and crystals. The pearls represent the necklace I had made for her which included some real pearls from my mother's necklace which she gave me and I had restrung and made a bit shorter.  Along with the necklace for my daughter there were matching earrings.  The crystals represent the wee gift she gave her guests, a Swarovski crystal ball to hang in front of their windows so when the light shone through wonderful dancing strobes of light were reflected onto their walls.  For the initials I used some silver metal sheeting and used the Tattered Lace Alphabet die set.

Here you can see I have placed the initials so they touch representing unity instead of adding hearts etc.

My card base is white and this is looking to stark as I put the card together so I decided at the last minute to stamp roughly a pattern stamp I have and then I mixed green and cranberry embossing powders together to match up with the card colour theme.

For the inside I used the ruby paper I had mounted my design paper on along with the second piece of design paper and a simple die cut light green for the writing area.  To finish off a few Liquid Pearls.  The ruby needed to be included in the card as the wedding invitations were cream with images of the orchids and tied together with ruby/burgandy organza ribbon.

I wanted lots of dimension on this card so fussy cut the hand image and then using foam pads only at each side attached it to the card creating a domed effect.  I also added a wire wedding ring to the image as is only showed an engagement ring and I added a Swarovski crystal gem to the engagement ring to represent her solitaire diamond.

 Finally I added a large bow, using the same ribbon as was used for her wedding invitations, promise you it is the same ribbon hahahaha.  We bought three large rolls and I promised I would add what was left to her future cards, so here I am holding true to that promise.  A wee charm was added to the centre of the bow, alas the pack of 5 I bought to make her wedding card and used for the following 4 years have run out so from now on a generic charm will be the way to go.  I have not done this before but I am sure my daughters won't mind :) Here is a pic of my eldest (the bride) and her sister (on the right) and cousin (on the left) so you can see how I have really tried to bring back memories of this super special day with this card :)

Ingredients:-

• Image - Hand in Hand Forever by Lynne Stansbery
• Colouring Medium - Promarkers and Faber Castell Polychromos
• Dies - Tattered Lace Retro Alphabet and Sizzix - 657914
• From my Stash - ribbon, pearls, crystals, Liquid Pearls, embossing powder, charm and gem

I am entering into the following challenges:-

• CAS-ual Chic - M, shabby chic, mixed media - July - Embossing
• Crafting-With-Friends - 2W, 3E - (W1 of 2) Anything Goes
• Creative Corner - W, 3E  - Wedding Bells are Ringing (WEDDING ANNIVERSARY BUT HOPE THIS STILL MATCHES YOUR THEME)
• Card Mania (M, P1, E3) #70 Anything Goes
• Crafts Galore Encore (M,P1,E3) Stamp or Digi Anywhere
• Lia Stampz Challenge (1E,P1,SIO) #90 Handmade Flowers
• The Sisters of Craft (M,P1) Anything Goes
• Scrap & Craft Challenge - M 1st Thurs, 3E,(W3)  #11 Celebrations