The Return of Flower Friday!

Way back when I used to be a consistent blogger, I started a little feature called Flower Friday. I love flowers. I find it very difficult to resist buying every flower stamp I see. But I have so darn many flower stamps, I've tried really hard in recent months not to buy anymore. I've actually been doing fairly well with that! But here's a beauty I bought last fall, before imposing this new restriction on myself. It's called Hydrangea and it's from smARTworks. I decided to use the "wet watercolor" technique (or whatever you want to call it, this technique seems to have many different names) except when I did the final stamp after the wet image dried, I didn't love how it looked so I spritzed my paper again. So, this is a very wet, blurry image of a hydrangea - but I really like it! I was trying really hard to channel a little bit of Leslie, to try to create a pretty, elegant flower card. I even grabbed some toilet paper from the bathroom to do the background (which you can't see in the photo anyway). I like how it turned out, but I am still a long way from Lesliedom. :-) (she is my hero when it comes to breathtakingly gorgeous cards!) I was inspired by Jenn's card today to use ribbon as part of the background. (Jenn is my hero when it comes to gorgeous, bright and cheerful cards, I LOVE today's card!!!) And that gorgeous satin ribbon is from a recent ribbon share that Jody hosted - so pretty! I was inspired to pull out my hydrangea stamp today because I have some exciting news from the garden - I planted a hydrangea last year just for kicks, because I *love* hydrangeas - but considering how much I've neglected my garden in recent years I didn't really expect it to bloom. Well, it's starting!! Yippee!! Only thing is, I love the blue hydrangeas, and it looks like I'm getting a yellow/pink one. I think I remember the color having something to do with the soil, but I don't remember if you need acidic or basic soil to get blue hydrangeas (Leslie? Help?). Or maybe I just dreamt that and it's really just based on the variety I planted. Yes, I am clearly a Master Gardener. Not! Ok I better go - trying to post this while cooking dinner, and dinner is starting to require more attention. Enjoy your weekend!

• Stamps: Hydrangea from smARTworks, Thoughtful Phrases from Verve Visual
• Paper: Always Artichoke, Night of Navy, Le Jardin DP, watercolor paper
• Ink: Black StazOn
• Accessories: SU markers, water spray bottle, spiral punch, antique brass hodgepodge hardware, lovely ribbon, edge distresser

Country roses

This is my little test to see if my mom reads my blog...! I probably shouldn't be posting this yet, it's her Mother's Day card. But I just love how it turned out and couldn't wait until next Monday to post! My mom is very country, so I was trying to reflect that in this card. I know everyone has seen about a zillion Roses in Winter cards, but this is actually my very first time playing with this set! I borrowed it from a fellow demo, to see if I have to buy it before it's retired. I really like it, but the jury is still out. So here are some creative details... there is so much more going on with this card than you really can tell from the photo! First of all, the roses are showing up way too vibrant - they aren't quite that bright in real life (I need to start using IRL instead of "in real life", I'm just not hip enough to the computer lingo for it to come naturally yet...!) (I'm still stuck in the early-90's world of sideways smilies!! :-) :-) :-)). The roses are stamped in Regal Rose, with a little Rose Red marker added along the edges on the stamp here and there. The leaves & card base are Mellow Moss, and there is a little So Saffron in the little stamped flowers and also the thin cardstock layer. I used my handy-dandy color coach for the Mellow Moss, Regal Rose and So Saffron combo - it also told me that Brocade Blue is a coordinating color, so I added a little of it with some Itty Bitty Background splotches, and also a tiny bit of blue marker along the edges of the paper before distressing. The edges of the rose block are also sponged with moss. If you think I suddenly got brave enough to use my sewing machine, you are sadly mistaken! The stitching is some super cool Studio K rub-on stitching I picked up at Archivers yesterday. I used my paper piercer to add little holes to the stitching, as if a needle had actually gone through the paper (well, in fact, a needle did - that's what I used to poke the holes! heh heh!) I used the Canvas background on the card base, and added some Michael's polka dot ribbon and some SU gingham. Oh and one other little detail - I used my clear Glaze pen to accent the roses, which you absolutely cannot tell from looking at the photo! Mom if you're looking, hope you like your card! :-)

Awesome stamper alert: Bad Sherry looked at *my* little blog!! Eeek!! She left a comment on my messy desk post. Ugh, of all the things for her to see...! By the way, she inspired me to want to borrow Roses in Winter when I saw her beautiful rose card. Totally love her blog, check it everyday - her cards are beautiful, and she is sooo funny & seems like she would be so much fun to know in real life! Er, I mean IRL!!!!

A bit of happiness among the mess!

I am cleaning my stamp room as we speak... ok, ok, I'm procrastinating a bit and posting a new card! But check this out... I was cleaning off my DISASTER of a desk, and was making a little pile of scraps or other elements that I didn't want to throw away, and both this stitched patterned paper and cut out doodle flower found their way into that pile! The stitched paper was what I started off with which eventually led to the stitched teddy bear card, and the flower was when I was playing around with the Jenn Balcer design, both below. Sitting next to each other on my desk, they screamed out to me "put us together on Kraft paper!!" - so who am I not to listen to my scraps??? Especially when it means a break from dealing with my massive mess! Ok, I'm going to do something very embarrassing now and show you what I'm dealing with tonight... here's the "before" photo of my desk. *UGH* I don't know how I let it get this bad - I guess I'm just a messy person when I'm being creative... (um, ok, don't know how to explain the rest of my messy house, but it was worth a try... on second thought that DOES explain it, I've been more interested in stamping than cleaning in general lately...!) :-) But alas, I had better stop procrastinating and get back to it... the desk is just one small part of the mess, my floor in there is absolutely COVERED with stuff, I have to carefully step around things to even make it to my desk! So overwhelming... I hope I find more scraps that I *just have to* take a break and play with soon... :-)

My happy place

Woohoo, I got to play with flower stamps tonight!! This card is nothing like I thought it would be when I started stamping (hours ago, ack, where has the time gone??!) but that's ok, I like the final result. I ended up using a layout inspired by last week's SCS sketch challenge. I chose to use the "happy place" sentiment because, as you can see from the past couple of posts, among the flowers is indeed my "happy place"!! Both the flower and sentiment come from retired mini catalog sets - More Petal Prints and Cute Converse. I also used French Script on the turquoise strips, and the main card actually has the Canvas background stamped with versamark, but you can't see it in this darn photo (I had some trouble getting a decent photo tonight too!). The cardstock colors are Sahara Sand, Chocolate Chip, Tempting Turquoise and Whisper White. I used markers on the stamp to color the flowers, stamping off as well for added background dimension - Bashful Blue, Tempting Turquoise and Garden Green. Other embellishments include the ticket corner punch, some brads from Making Memories, grosgrain ribbon, and a little Star Dust Stickles on the main three flowers for a bit of shimmer. That pretty much sums it up - I better get this posted and hit the hay, I'm soooo sleepy!