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Petal Party Ensemble

Last spring I planned a class using a Sunshine Garden to make a 6 x 6 album with a matching set of cards only to find that the lovely Simply Scrappin' kit was unavailable as soon as it's retirement was announced June 1st.  I guess I learned that it doesn't always pay to bundle my supply  orders to max out my hostess benefits. Anyway, I ended up redesigning the whole project with the bright and beautiful Petal Party  Simply Scrappin' Kit:

 

Here is the album opened up:

 

I found the pattern for this "Flip Book" on Amy Celona's site. It's a great pattern. It didn't take long at all to put the basic book together. It took me a little longer to decide how I wanted to decorate the pages.  I was able to make the album and 8 cards from 1/2 of kit by just adding some Whisper White and So Saffron card bases. As you can see, I added the Swirly Sizzlets Die to use as a stem and ended up using the "negative" left from the cut-out as ground.

Here's are close-ups from a couple of the cards:

 

Note that the sun is one quarter of a large flower with just a pit of sponging. You can see the Sunshine Garden version here.

 

I ended up very happy with the Petal Party version. It's so bright and is perfect for summer pictures.

Supplies

Paper/images: Petal Party Simply Scrappin' Kit, Whisper White

Accessories: Chit Chat Rub-ons, Modern Label punch, Swirly Sizzlet, Olive Striped Ribbon, Fresh Favorites I buttons

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Jingle Tulips

I stamped with some fellow stampers and after everyone had made a few cards we decided to case Vicki's tulip card.  Pretty soon each of us had a different set of DSP. Kathy had some pretty pinks from the Sweet Pea collection; Dawn had pinks and apricots from Kaleidoscope. I was thinking there must be some pastel patterns I was forgetting about and went to my drawer. I saw the polka dots from Christmas Jingle and immediately forgot about a pastel color scheme and knew my version would feature bright red tulips.

 

As you can tell, I made a few other changes.  The ivory ribbon seemed to help tone down the holiday tone of the stripes. Now I just wish I had the camera handy to take a few shots of Kathy and Dawn's cards. We did decide this was a fun way to stamp together. It's so fun to see where we can go with one common piece of inspiration.

Thanks, Vicki, for inspiring a great stamping session!

You can find some of the other work I find inspiring by checking out Chris' Google Reader: shared items. The link is on the right sidebar.

Chris

A flower out of season

Here is another card from a stamping session I had with my downline Liz a few months ago. This was a joint effort.  Liz did the beautiful coloring on this poinsettia from A Flower for All Seasons. I put it together with a few scraps from Thoroughly Modern and Pink Flamingo DSP. My most surprising find in this project was how well I liked using white matting with skinny black layers. You might have seen a similar look on one of the Going Green cards I posted last week. I haven't used black gingham ribbon in a while. It is such a workhorse!

 

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One more daffodil card

We started the week with a good snow cover and all the ground covered.  With rain and temps in the forties all week we now have a lot of grass peeking through AND daffodils starting to pop up outside the window of my stamping area. I hope the hungry little critters in our neighborhood will leave them alone this year.

Here is the last of the Abundant Hope/Daffodil cards I put together a few weeks ago. My stamp club was doing easel cards for the first time.

The flowers are gold embossed. I started with a 2 7/8" x 4 1/4" piece of Whisper White to make the lace layer with the scallop trim border and corner punches. The base of the card is brushed gold.

More Sweet Pea Cards

There is another side to the darling Sweet Pea DSP that I showed you yesterday and here it is:

I normally gravitate to the smaller prints in a pack of DSP (designer series paper). This time I set out to take advantage of the large focal point images I found in the series. Since I also used the Chat Room rub-ons  didn't need any stamps to make these cards.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by my "inkpad" and have a nice day!

Hope Happens

These are some simple cards featuring the set Hope Happens, the Sweet Pea DSP and Sweet Pea stitched felt. I made them with my downline, Liz's set when she visited a few months ago. I get a lot of inspiration for cards like these by searching CAS (for clean and simple) at Splitcoaststampers.

 

Abundant Hope Trio - or piecemeal stamping

I did these cards over a 3-4 days of limited stamping time. One day I embossed a bunch of the daffodil images in gold embossing powder. Later I pulled out a bunch of favorites oldies and decided which would work with my images. Figuring out my color scheme was another day's stamp time as I colored them in with markers (Barely Banana, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, and Certainly Celery).

The first is a style I call Tied Circles which I usually reserve for small stamps. This time I punched out different sections of a larger image.

I've used this offset floral layout before though I don't think I've ever posted it. And of course since I've been playing with new punches I decided to dress it up with a little bit of a lacy look. 

Finally, I trimmed an image cut out with the Top Note die cut so that I could layer it on another Top Note.

All cards feature So Saffron and Certainly Celery. The Circle card uses Whisper White card stock and taffeta ribbon while the others have Very Vanilla card stock and Certainly Celery satin ribbon. DSP is from the Sweet Pea set.

Thanks for stopping by. Remember to check out the great projects I see on other stampers' blogs. Just click on the link just below the catalog on my right sidebar, "Chris' Google Reader: Shared Items". 

Chris

Faux Scallops? Not

This is for Splitcoast's TLC262 Faux What? It was last Monday's challenge but I've just been getting reacquainted with my camera and posting it now.  We were supposed to create shapes as though we didn't have any nesties but I didn't need to act as I don't have any! I used an oval cutter to make a cereal box cardboard stencil just a little smaller than the shape I was going to cut. My dry embossed circle has a little bigger edge than a real nestie would have due to the variations I had available with my oval coluzzle. I also used the stencil to sponge the embossed area.

The scallop layer was made with my retired SU scallop scissors. The embossed oval was glued onto the Bordering Blue cardstock before cutting the scallops. I really think this scissors should make a comeback, don't you? Even though I planned to use ribbon to cover up where the beginning of my scallops meets
the end, they did happen to match up pretty well.

I think this was a new color combination for me: Bordering Blue/Mellow Moss-Always Artichoke/Rose Red

 

Go Green Trio

Here are a few of the cards I featured at my Stamp Club last week. 

Though I'm not Irish, Belle Plaine has a parade, royalty, the whole nine-yards. So, I thought I better update my collection of St Patrick's Day cards.  

I took the inspiration for the center card from an old favorite turned upside-down.  The tiny shamrock in the Go Green image is actually made of little hearts that match the heart shaped petals from the set, With All My Heart so I embossed that image with Iridescent Ice (clear with glitter) powder on Garden Green cardstock for part of the background. The lighter pattern below the scallops is from the DSP, Kaleidoscope. The main image is stamped with Garden Green craft in and also embossed with Iridescent Ice.  The larger accent shamrock is made from cutting out the heart shaped petals left over from the Garden Green piece that I embossed. A last note about this card is that I repeated a layer of white matting behind the main image. I think this is a great way to stretch smaller images and keep a clean, pristine look.

Here's a close-up of the sparkles:

The other two cards make use of some Garden Green hostess DSP from last year and the Lots of Tags Sizzlet that works very well with the wide oval punch. The card on the left pairs Garden Green with Sage Shadow which seems to be just a paler shade of Garden Green. Since I was using my Garden Green inkspot to ink the image it was easy to omit the Happy St. Partrick's Day message and just go with "Go Green". It makes the stamp more versatile.

The card on the right goes for a crisper look with Whisper White. This card is also a knock off of an earlier card.

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