The Key to my Heart

Good Morning!
It's lovely to see some sunshine today after a rather dreary, damp week around here, we've both got colds, so definitely need a bit of brightening up!  

We have a new Inspiration Picture to play with over at The Daring Cardmakers this week and if you like arty, steampunky type stuff, you'll love Svenja's picture choice! 
The DCM team is very varied in our card-making styles and favoured techniques so it's always fascinating to see how everyone responds to these inspiration pictures - sometimes its hard to believe that we all started from the same place!

"It's the first Friday of February already, so time for a brand new Elemental Inspiration challenge...
All you need to do is choose at least THREE elements from the photo and use them on your own creation (colours only count as ONE element)."
Don't quite know where to start... ? 
Just head over to the BLOG where there's some wonderful inspiration by the DT members for you."
 
 

I planned an inky, painty, narrow panel with lots of embossing (the hexagons), some extra texture and copper leafing - generally mixed media stuff, which would be tied round with wire and a key or other metal embellishment to incorporate my chosen elements from Svenja's picture:

I wasn't intending to make a heart, but that's how it evolved! 

I started with a piece of lovely pearlised "Srardream" cardstock from PDA, which was the perfect aqua-green colour and set about adding more shades using Fresco Finish acrylic paints.

The embossing folder I used is "Honeycomb" by Tereas Collins and I love that you get the two different 'looks', with either the puffy raised hexagons, or the deeply embossed lines around them as the dominant feature.  Obviously I wanted to use both  so I partially embossed the card over a diagonal area, then flipped the card and debossed a different corner. 

I also added some stencilled hexagons, but in the end the part I cut out doesn't really show them.

I used a little bit of copper and gold leafing randomly, and various other things like Alchemy Wax and Glimmer Mist (I never have much luck with these things, I should stop buying them) and anything else that I thought might be interesting

This was the point for deciding which part of the piece I'd made to use on my card and that's when the heart happened. It's die cut with one of the nested hearts from a Die-Namics set and as it was now a bit flat I had to add a bit of extra embossing.

I added more shading around the edge, and then decided to cover part of it with Diamond White Glitter Gel paste.

Then I thought it might be a good idea to give the whole thing a

 coat of Glossy Accents to embed the glitteriness and give a bit of a

 sheen to the piece!

Honestly, the problem with mixed media is that you never know when to stop.

Or is that just me!

Anyway, once dried I added some slightly smaller heart shapes cut from thick card to the back and gently bevelled the edge to get a more rounded rather than flat shape to the heart.  To fix the heart to the base card I used a scrap of extra thick card on one side, so that I could slide the metal cogs underneath at the other side

I just wanted a simple white background, but the smooth white card was "too" plain iykwim, so I used the Honeycomb embossing folder again to match the hexagons on the heart, and matted it onto some matching  sea green Bazzill

To complete the project I added small metal cogs, a length of twill ribbon and a gorgeous key on some beaded wire.  The ribbon, some of the cogs and that beautiful verdigris key came from various of the boxes I've had from Craft Box

I just love going through them all over again and rediscovering the treasures they contain - which is how I came across the little tin of micro beads - I couldn't resist adding some to this project and I love the way they've added an extra bit of texture and interest!

But just how perfect was that key for the colours of the heart!

As yet, I've not decided what to do with this card.  I'm thinking now that it would actually make a lovely canvas.  My OH gave me some small square canvases as part of a crafty goody box at Christmas so maybe it won't end up as a card after all!

That's it for today, do please take a look at our fabulous challenge blog and see if you're inspired to join in with us this week- it would be wonderful if you were!

Take care, have a good weekend and thank you fo taking the time to visit me here