I bet you were expecting something else! Well in fact, yesterday was a jackpot delivery day! Both my Stampin' Up! and my Verve order arrived. I just love to dive in and play with new stuff...I have no reserve. And, since my Stampin' Up! sets need to be mounted, Verve won over this time because they arrive good to go!
I just had to have the set Thankful Blossoms for the flower! There are two similar flowers, but I stamped 10 of the same large flower and just proceeded to colour them in! They are amazing....and I don't even like to colour! So after this session, I still have 7 more flowers that are just waiting for a home on a card! The other three, you are about to see! I have two cards to share. I'll share the this one first, and save my favorite from this stamping session for last! 
There was an article a few months ago in Papercrafts magazine about all the cool things you could do with clear stamps. I didn't have any clear stamps at the time, but I was really intrigued by their possibilities. Did you know you can create your own roller by clinging your stamps to a glass? Very cool. The other thing I recall, and the reason I'm blabbering on. was the ability to make background paper. Not only because they're clear, but because you can use more than one image at a time. So, I just had to try it! I put the two small flowers on the larger block, and stamped using Pretty in Pink ink. Each time I would turn it so the images would alternate. How cool is that? Mostly I was just playing, I didn't think I would get them right the first time...but it was so easy! I had already coloured the large flower earlier with my markers so this card was a real quickie. I put a Jumbo Pewter Brad in the centre of the flower, then added a circle rhinestone brad. A strip of Apricot Appeal with a length of "Flirty" runs across the lower part of the card. It is pierced both top and bottom. Finally, photo corners were punched in both Apricot Appeal and Pretty in Pink, layered then pierced. The flower is adhered with dimensionals. The sentiment was stamped (crooked-oops) in Basic Gray ink, and I'm not thrilled with it, so I may end up stamping it on white, and layering it on top. I just love the possibilities here.
OK, here's my favorite!
I really loved the way these flowers turned out, so I knew they would be the first to make it to a card!
The base of the card is Always Artichoke, and the Ginger Blossom designer paper forms the next layer. I tied some Rustic Retreat (retired) ribbon around the seam and knotted it off to the right.
The flowers were stamped in Basic Black Craft ink and heat set. They were coloured by outlining the flowers with the brush tip of my Ruby Red Stampin' Write marker, then taking my Aqua-painter to blend the colour. The colour doesn't "move" much from where you laid it down, but because it is water based you can blend it somewhat. You can see the inner parts are much lighter, which in the case of this flower, is a really neat effect! I also took the fine tip of the marker and "dotted" the three dots and traced the little swirl in each flower. The I cut them out, and added a fancy dollar store brad to each one.
The stem (LOVE that stem!!) is stamped in Basic Black classic ink, twice for each to get them long enough, on Blush Blossom. They are really easy to line up since they are clear, and I found that if I just took my finger and touched the first dot, the point where they joined was not so noticeable. Then I stamped the leaf outline in Basic Black, and the centre in Always Artichoke. The Blush Blossom panel is layered on Ruby Red and then Always Artichoke and attached with dimensionals. The flowers were adhered to the Blush Blossom with dimensionals as well.
The sentiment was stamped in Black Craft ink on Blush Blossom and heat set. It was layered on Ruby Red, and the tag corner punch was used to create a tag. A small strip of the Rustic Retreat ribbon was tied to it, and it was adhered to the main panel, and anchored with dimensionals. As a final touch, I took the Basic Black Stampin' Write marker, and added three dots to opposite corners on the focal panel, and three dots on the sentiment tag.
Now tell me...isn't this a gorgeous colour combo? I don't think I ever would have put Ruby Red and Blush Blossom together had it not been for the Ginger Blossom designer paper pack. I really like this card, and the sentiment "you're Amazing" means it can be a thank you, a pick me up, a congrats a hey how's it going card. Love it.
What about you?
