Friendship and Tranquility

Hey there, folks! How y'all doin'?
I'm here tonight with another crafty make for ya. Hubby and I have a friend on facebook and he's started an AWAKENING MOVEMENT there on his personal page. He has lots of followers and he is really spiritual (non religious) and is walking a new path of being sober, enlightened and WOKE! This is so great for him and he's such an inspiration to SO many people, myself and hubby included even though I don't and have never had an addiction problem (hubby did in his very early younger years, but never since then).

Anyhow, I really wanted to make a lovely card for our friend Chiz because he's recently been going through a rough time after he was involved in a hit and run accident. He was injured very badly and had to take a few months off work, but through all of this he has stayed SO strong and he has continued to inspire and motivate others and give us all the love and light that we all need in our life no matter what our situation is!

This is a really cool card and it came out a LOT better than I had pictured it in my head. As you know, I RARELY replicate cards, but I ended up replicating this one after I finished his just to have a copy for my own memory book because I liked it so much.
Click below to see the card...

So, here's the card. I'm REALLY pleased with how it turned out. The hardest part about making this card was doing the heat embossing of the Monk image because for some reason the circle flourishes didn't want to stamp their full circles on the very ends. So for the 2 cards I ended up redoing the image 5 times before I finally got 2 full crisp images stamped in Versamark to heat emboss!

I chose red, yellow and blue because in the Asian cultures those are all 3 colors that represent tranquility and that is what my whole idea for this card was, to present Chiz with some MORE tranquility in his life.

The base of the card is Bazzil Navy textured cardstock and the red background cardstock and the deco cardstock strip is from the BasicGrey "Curio" 6" x 6" pad.

For the "Tranquility" symbol and sentiment I used the SU! "Kanji" set. I stamped it in TH Barn Door (red) and then cut it with the Spellbinders Nestabilities Circles SM and inked the edge of the circle in SU! Not Quite Navy. I stamped the Chinese stack house from the Inkadinkado "Asian Influences" set in Ranger Archival Jet Black ink for the most crisp image I could get, again using the Spellbinders to cut the circle and inked in the Not Quite Navy. For the scalloped circles I used Bazzil black cardstock and the Spellbinders Nestabilities Scalloped Circles SM.

Both of these circles are mounted with 3d foam pop squares for maximum POP off the card.

I was trying to get a GREAT picture of the Monk, but it was kinda hard because the flash of my camera kept making the image shine from the heated embossing powder. I stamped the whole image in Versamark and then heat embossed it in Ranger Fine black embossing powder.

I used my SU! Daffodil Delight and TH Barn Door (red) inks and colored/blended them with my SU! Blender pen. I really love how well it turned out. Originally I had colored the Monk's robe just in the Daffodil Delight, but it looked so plain so I decided to bring some of the red in to go with the background paper. I colored the Daffodil Delight first and then blended the Barn Door over it.
I inked the edges of the white cardstock with SU! Not Quite Navy and then mounted it on some Black Bazzil cardstock. I adhered it to the deco cs with double sided tape and Glossy Accents for an extra strong and long lasting bond.

For this Chinese "coin" I used a TH metal piece and I stamped the coin image from the Inkadinkado Far East set onto the metal with Stazon ink. I let it dry for a good 5 minutes--even though Stazon pretty much dries within a minute or so on metal, but I wanted it to be fully dry and take no chances because I only had 2 metal pieces! Once it dried I covered the whole metal piece in Glossy Accents so it's full of shine.

This is what the coin image looks like when done on cardstock. The only difference on the metal is the TINY detail in the middle of the symbol that's on the left. Other than that, the detail is AMAZING on the metal.

For the ribbon I used "True Gold" colored ribbon from an old 2001 collection of Robert Stanley who strictly made all of his ribbon from SILK. This was a bit tedious because the ribbon kept fraying and I had to keep cutting off little strings, but I finally got it tied. On the 2nd card I couldn't get the knot to stay under the image of the House but that's ok, they didn't need to be exactly the same.
I cut a hole in the bottom of the house circle and threaded the ribbon through there and then I mounted the metal piece to the cs with some 3D foam pop dots and Glossy Accent for extra bond. The coin isn't popped up off the card as tall as the 2 circles above it because I wanted it to have that "hanging" affect, but I HAD to mount it because it kept trying to flip over. :-/ But, it still does look nice!

For the inside of the card I use white Georgia Pacific cardstock and inked the edges in TH Barn Door (red) and then used the sentiment from the SU! "Language of Friendship" set, stamping it in SU! Not Quite Navy to pull in some color from the front of the card.

Here are the 2 cards side by side. Almost exactly the same, but the deco strip on the card on the left is a bit wider, the metal coin on the card on the right is placed more to the left and a bit lopsided (oops!) and the coloring isn't as great as the card that I made for Chiz. But, that's ok because I'm keeping it for myself to put in my memory book. I may give it to someone down the road, but I don't have any idea of who at this time, as I simply replicated it specifically to put in my own memory book.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks, as always for stopping by to check out my crafty makes!
Be sure to check back soon to see what else I've been working on. You can also sign up on the left side of my blog to receive e-mails each time I make a new post.

Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie