It Takes a Village to Make a Wedding Card (07/16/2012)

Today's post was a true collaboration ... it definitely takes a village - and teams are much more inspiring than just one person.  Let's meet today's card that many people (me and several fairy godmothers) were involved in the creation and inspiration of:

Okay, so it seems like a nice, simple wedding card ... but it is an interactive, double-slider card!!  I received a thank you card recently from a very dear friend. She made a double-slider card and I was blown away with how cool it was!  I had been mulling around how to make a wedding card, and when I saw the slider-thank you card, I was inspired!

Here is the full card, with the top & bottom slid out:

Now, pull up a chair and get comfortable, because I want to share with you how I was inspired, and how much help I had to make this card.  I definitely cannot take all the credit because of all the help, suggestions and advice I received! 

I first envisioned a wedding card, using Lawn Fawn's Happily Ever After and using the dress and engagement ring stamps.  I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted for a background, or how to frame the dress.  But, I wanted the dress!  I pulled out some silvery paper from my stash, and also found a floral patterned vellum.  I knew I needed to make the dress from the silver paper, and also stamped out the bodice on the vellum.  I laid the vellum over the silver, and it gave the top of the dress a little extra pop.  I planned on putting mini pearls across the waist area to separate the top from the bottom, and cover up any adhesive used on the base of the vellum.  I was telling my dear friend Terri, who made me the slider thank you card, about this card idea - and she suggested some tulle or fabric to go over the bottom of the dress too.  An idea was formed!  And, Terri was kind enough to give me some tulle out of her stash since I didn't have any.  Note to self, must purchase tulle because it is so much fun to work with!  We'll come back to the dress construction in a little bit....  But, here is a closeup of the vellum overlaying the silver:



Terri, and our other uber-crafty friend, Mary, came over to help with with the build of this card.  I won't exactly 'fess up how many HOURS this card took, but it was a lot :)  And, this was with three people working diligently to make it happen ... and, the best part was, we had too much fun!

I had already stamped out the dress and bodice, and had measured out a 6" x 6" square double-slider card.  The double-slider card Terri had given me was rectangular, so I had to use my stellar math skills to change the dimensions, and also go from rectangular to square. 

For the dress itself, Terri and Mary suggested gathering up the tulle and using a ribbon.  They set about making the gathered fabric and assembled the dress.  We quickly realized the gathered fabric wouldn't allow for a pearl-belt but I was adament that we use pearls.  But, I couldn't figure out where to put them.  Terri, in her infinite wisdom (she is so much more creative than me!) suggested we place pearls on the tulle, on the bottom of the dress!  Genius idea!  And, instead of placing a strip of pearls at the waist area, we moved the pearls to the top of the bodice for extra pizzaz.  This is how the dress turned out:

Okay, so we had the dress done ... now we needed to frame it or highlight it somehow.  We pondered a lot of different ideas, namely using die cuts to create a label or shaped background.  All of a sudden, Terri and I both said we wanted to "frame" the dress, and realized we could use Lawn Fawn's Fanciful Frames!  And, we could use the purple patterned paper from Lawn Fawn's Petite Paper Pack.  Now, how to frame the dress in the actual frame?  As soon as we pulled out the larger frame, we both envisioned a mirror ... now, how to make the mirror reflective?  I didn't have any silver metal, but I had gold leaf, but it was too flimsy.  That didn't seem right - and then we realized that a silver filled-in frame would not make the silver dress pop - we had to have a different color inside the frame.  We settled on a white interior, but with a platinum-stamped mirror image of the dress.  We got busy making this, and assembled the mirror.

Once we had this handled, Terri realized that the proportions were wrong, and we couldn't have a 6" x 6" card.  So, we cut down the card base to a 5" x 5" square.  This fit the dress and mirror better. 

We also made the rings.  Mary and Terri suggested we make them pop a little more, and I should do black embossing.  I found some gold shiny paper in my stash, and stamped and black heat embossed the rings, then fussy cut them out.  I also stamped out the diamond on the same silvery paper as the dress and black heat embossed it.  I fussy cut it out and started to assemble, but it seemed like the diamond should be a little more sparkly.  We pulled some glitter out of my stash, and viola, we had a glittery accent on the diamond!

   
The front wasn't quite balanced as we laid it out - and Terri and Mary suggested a bit of a line or base across the black background.  Again, we turned to my stash, and pulled out some sticky tape and the same glitter we used on the diamond, and made a glitter line across the card to anchor the mirror and dress.

After this, we had to tackle the two pieces that would slide out.  Previously, Terri showed me another card she made with Lawn Fawn's Critters Ever After magic wand and star clusters.  This inspired us to use the same stamp set and make a starry background for the two slider pieces.  I also wanted the background to be purple, but not purple cardstock.  We pulled out my Distress Inks and chose Dusty Concord.  But, to make the stars visible, and not cover them in purple, I stamped the stars from Critters Ever After and Bake Me a Cake with Versa Mark embossing ink, sprinkled them with white embossing powder, and heat embossed them.  Then, I pulled out my trusty ink blender and went to town coloring the white paper purple.  The ink colored the paper, except the stars, where the ink was "resisted" by the white embossing powder.  This resist-technique is pretty cool!  Here is a close-up:

For one of the slide out panels, we decided to do part of the sentiment from the Happily Ever After stamp set.  The full sentiment reads: "Wishing you a happily ever after" but we shortened it, to just the "happily ever after" part, and also used the ellipses from the Just My Type Too set, which was perfect!  Again, the dilemma was how to frame the sentiment.  We decided to use Bannerific for one of the banners, and have the banner held up by two white doves (also part of the Bannerific stamp set).  The panel seemed a little empty, so back to the Happily Ever After set, for the entertwined hearts.  I stamped them on white paper and Copic colored them red.

For the other slide out panel, I envisioned a stamped border of the champagne glasses, but didn't know how to pull it together.  Terri suggested we stamp the glasses in a row, and color in the glasses of champagne.  Terri (who is an awesome colorer!) started blending Copic colors to find the perfect color combination.  She then had the idea of placing the little heart cluster from Happily Ever After as bubbles from the champagne.  As we practiced and fiddled with it, we settled on a strip of champagne glasses, but only the center pair colored in with heart bubbles above it.  We also decided to stamp the heart bubbles in gold sparkly ink.  A stamped sentiment, also from Happily Ever After, and then an inked border - and we were done :)

Here is the card with the sliders half out - just to get a better idea of what they look like going in and out:

Terri asked me about an envelope - and I said I would make one.  But, it sooned dawned on me that an envelope wouldn't work since the dress had such dimension to it.  So, I made a box instead! 

I cut out some 6" x 6" square for the base, a 6-1/8" x 6-1/8" square for the top and some 1-1/2" strips for the edges.  I versa mark stamped the champagne glasses on the strips, scored them at 1" and folded them and adhered the edges to the base.  I did the same for the top.  Here are both pieces:

 
I used my Bright Side Collections alpha stickers to spell out "congrats" and the bride and groom's names.  I also used my silver sparkle gel pen to draw around the "congrats" sentiment to make a little extra pop:

When I showed this card to my husband, Guy, he really liked it, but didn't realize it was a slider card.  I had to give him some hints for him to realize that he had to hold the card and pull the white ribbon so that the other two panels slid out.  So, I improvised a note for the happy couple so they would know what to do, when they opened the card too.  I used a vintage Creative Memories swirly border guide, traced it with the sparkle pen and wrote a quite note about how to operate the card so they would get the full effect:

And, to finish it all off, I placed the card in the box, slid on the lid, and tied it all up in a bow:

This was a card made just for the happy couple, and I really hope they appreciate it ... we had such a fabulous time making it!

Thanks for stopping by, have a magical day!

Chris