i heart u card for Bella Blvd and RCC42

Bella Blvd is hosting a series of challenges on their blog right now. I was so fortunate to have received a Winter Wonder collection pack a while back, and put together this card to play along.

This is for Thursday's challenge which was to use border strip papers in your project.

I really liked the border strip with the Christmas/pine trees on it. This card is 4x6, so once I cut the piece for the card, I still had 6" left. To create dimension/depth on the card, I cut out some of the tree shapes from the 6" strip I wasn't using to layer over the base piece.

Since I'm a crafter on a budget, I've got to make choices. Most of the time I go for papers and stamps, so my adhesive supply is pretty minimal. I have my Tombow, Bonding Memories Liquid Adhesive, and dimensional foam tape. I wanted the trees to pop up, but not too much. I thought the foam would be too high, plus it's hard to cut really itty bitty pieces like I needed for some of the trees.

Instead, I cut tiny pieces of cardstock - smaller than the shape I was adhering, and then sandwiched those between the base layer and the cut out. I actually did this in two levels, so some of the trees have just one layer of cardstock, and some have two layers so that stand up a bit higher.



I really liked the mesh border strip also. To stretch it a bit, after cutting it in two 6" strips, I cut one along the center to create two thinner pieces. The thinner ones went above and below the tree border strip, and the other balances that element at the bottom of the card.

There's one more border strip on this card. Can you spot it? It's the red polka dot paper. I freehand cut a heart from it, layering it over another heart cut from chocolate cardstock to use as part of the sentiment.

I loved that pop of red, but I felt like the card needed a little more red to balance it. As so often is the case, a little bit of twine was just the right touch. I added some above and below the tree border strip. I also tied a little around the u, stringing it through that cute little xoxo sticker tag from the miniatures sheet. Just perfect, and it allows me to enter it into this week's Ribbon Carousel Challenge (RCC42 Anything Goes) too. Providential!



Hope you like it. I have at least one more Bella challenge entry up my sleeve....maybe more....

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: CTMH - White Daisy, Olive, Chocolate
Paper: Bella Blvd Winter Wonder Border Strips
Other: Bella Blvd - Ciao Chip Alphabet in Simply Simona Brownie, Winter Wonder Miniatures, Twinery - Maraschino Twine