Crafting on the Edge: A Die Cut Booklover's Delight

 Hello friends, my card today helps kick off the May challenge for A Blog Named Hero, "shaped cards."  And before I forget, if you play along at our blog's website by posting your own shaped card, you'll be eligible for a very handsome prize from our blog sponsor, Hero Arts

This is a nearly effortless shaped card, using watercolors and showcasing one of my favorite pastimes, reading.  Hero Arts recently launched an entire stamp and die line all about books and reading--and it could be that I went a little crazy in ensuring I added nearly all of them to my stash!  

Here's how I made this one layer card with the bookish border:

1.  Partially die cut the stacked books fancy die from a piece of water color paper (I like Fabriano Artistico, but any good watercolor paper will work), creating an A2 sized card (the 4.25' width includes the shaped right edge of the card)

2.   Leaving the die in place on the watercolor paper, I changed my die cutting sandwich to a set up for die embossing a die and ran the paper through again, this time embossing the book stack image into the paper.  

3.  Water colored the panel--because the book stack is embossed into the paper, it's really easy to get the color to stay exactly where I wanted it.  And that straight line between the yellow wall and the gray-brown table stayed straight and separate by using a piece of painter's tape to keep the darker color nice and straight.

4.  Used a gold pen to go over every embossed line in the book stack --this not only adds some extra interest and shine, it also gives the card a finish look.

5.  Stamped the sentiment, which is one of my favorites from the Literary Quotes stamp set--and well, that's that!

I hope you'll show off your shaped card by linking it to A Blog Named Hero--and please use the hashtag #ablognamedhero so that we can all ooh and ahh over your creation! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Essie