Happy Monday to you! Today starts our new challenge at A Blog Named Hero, and this month we are collaborating with Chibitronics. They’re this neat company that makes adhesive LED lights that you can use in your paper crafting. So much fun to play with lights on cards.
Our challenge this month is interactive cards, and we’d love it if you played along. Click on this graphic to submit your entry at A Blog Named Hero.
Now, on to my card!
I even made a moving picture for you, so you could see the lights in action!
Before I tell you how I made this card, may I first recommend that you start simpler than I did? Ha. I wasn’t thinking about how this was going to actually work, I had just envisioned the final card. I knew I wanted to make a galaxy background, my first, and that I wanted to use this Hero Arts star die. So I sort of started backwards. Here’s what I did:
- I used the silver metallic watercolor paint from the Kuretake Gansai Tambi palette and put down a base coat on a piece of watercolor cardstock.
- After that was dry I used some Distress oxide inks to add some color to the galaxy. Dried that with my heat tool and then added some black watercolor from that same Kuretake palette. Once that was dry I added drops of white, silver and black watercolor, and kept drying and reapplying until the hot mess somewhat resembled a galaxy, from afar.
- Let that dry completely and cut out the stars using the Hero Arts die. I also cut the die from scrap printer paper, and a piece of silver glitter cardstock.
- Stamped my sentiment using some Alpha stamps from Hero Arts.
- Took one of the scrap die cuts and traced it onto some scrap paper, so I could draw in the circuit, and the lights. This is a very important step, so that you have some semblance of a plan for the circuitry in your head. This will help you see what will and won’t work, circuit wise.
- That’s my circuit, on the silver glitter die cut. I did this for two reasons. One is that I didn’t want to apply this to my card front itself, in case I messed up. 🙂 And also because I thought the glitter paper would be reflective and help the lights shine brighter.
- This is a picture of the back of my galaxy die cut. I did a triple layer of foam to account for the height of the battery.
- Applied the galaxy card front to the silver background. Adhered that piece to the actual card front, which was created by sponging Distress oxide Wilted Violet and Fossilized Amber on to a piece of watercolor paper.
- Adhered the sentiment strip with some thin foam squares.
- Layered up six stars to create a dimensional “push here” button in the lower right corner of the die cut.
- Used a portion of an arrow stamp to point out the star where the recipient should push to turn on the lights. Notice the light pink glow around the dashed lines? That’s because I used Glossy Accents on the arrow and dashed lines, and I don’t think Distress Oxide likes Glossy Accents. No big deal, just something to keep in mind.
- You can see the dimension from the three layers of foam adhesive in these pictures, and also the silver glitter paper.
I know this is a lot of pictures, and information, but please don’t be overwhelmed. This really was a fun card to make, and I’m looking forward to finding the perfect person to send it to, maybe for a new job, or a recent graduate.
I hope you’ll join our challenge this month. I look forward to seeing what you make.
