How I Spent My Afternoon!

I actually didn't play a lot with my new catalogue stuff! I first made this card because I borrowed the Floral background stamp from my mother-in-law and I wanted to see what it looked like. I stamped it with Brilliant Blue ink on Bashful Blue cardstock, and I thought it looked so pretty just by itself, I didn't want to put anything else on the card! But I had to add something, so I just put a small image on the left so as not to cover up too much of the background. I stamped the flower from "In Full Bloom" in Basic Black and colored it in with blender pens and Stampin' Pastels (Brilliant Blue and Glorious Green). That is layered on Brilliant Blue and Bashful Blue mattes. Then I used a hinge from the hodgepodge pewter hardware with Bluebird grosgrain ribbon to finish it off. I decided to stay monochromatic so I didn't take away from the background stamp.

This is a card designed by my friend, Treena. She was over last night for a downline meeting, and she showed us all how to make the big paper flower! It is really quite easy. We just punched a bunch of circles (I used the 1 1/4 inch) out of designer paper (this is from the Palette of Prints). Then we punched one more cardstock circle for the base (you can't see it now). We folded all the circles so they were kind of at a point and used glue dots to adhere them around the cardstock circle base. The card itself is Rose Red. The green circle is made from the Celery designer paper from the Palette of Prints. We punched flowers with the Spring Bouquet punch out of the celery designer paper as well.

So this afternoon, I tried to "finish" the card off. I put black brads through some of them. The other two flowers have an asterisk stamped in the middle (from the Everyday Flexible Phrases set). I then stamped the big swirl from the new Baroque Motifs set in Basic Black and the "celebrate" sentiment from Everyday Flexible Phrases. It's a bright, happy card - not my usual style, but I think I like it!


After I finished the big flower card, I set to work making some prototype bookmarks! I'm on the Worship Committee at my church, and we needed something to give as a thank you to the people who have been involved in worship this year. I need to make about 75 of them, so I wanted something nice, but quick! I used the Jazz wheel and rolled it over an entire sheet of white cardstock with Basic Black ink. Then I cut the cardstock to the size I wanted, and adhered that to the Real Red and Basic Black backgrounds. I stamped the "thanks" in Real Red - these were from a few different sets (Wonderful Words, Much Appreciated, Everyday Flexible Phrases). The ribbon is red grosgrain.