Welcome to my crafty blog. Today’s card is one I’ve made for friends who’ll be celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary next month. I did a bit of research on anniversary gifts and discovered that the 5th anniversary is traditionally marked with gifts of wood, which naturally influenced the theme for this card. Depending on which sources you read, the tradition of marking wedding anniversaries began either in ancient Rome or in medieval Germany, when a wife would receive a silver wreath from her husband on their 25th anniversary. It seems likely that this was only a tradition amongst the wealthy! More recently, it seems to have been the Victorians who adopted a prescribed list of gifts for each anniversary. This was further regularised by the American National Jewellers Association in 1937, who published a list of gifts of increasing value for each year up to the 20th anniversary, and then every 5 years after that.

Anyway, back to the card! I started by stamping the sentiment in Archival ‘potting soil’ on the bottom left of a square of white card, using Claritystamp’s ‘Barbara’s handwriting’ stamps. I mounted that on a mat of dark brown card, and then attached it to a 6×6 white card blank.

I then die cut 5 hearts, 3 small dark brown and 2 larger ones in a lighter shade, using Claritystamp’s nested heart dies. I ran them all through a wood effect embossing folder to give them some dimension, and then glued them onto the front of the card. I finished by adding a few gemstones around the hearts.

Thanks for dropping in. Stay safe wherever you are – and have a happy Christmas!