Friends Are Like Seashells with Flowers for Every Season for Stamp with Amy K’s Tuesday Blog Hop

Hello and thanks for stopping by my part of this Stamp with Amy K’s Tuesday team blog hop! We’ve made cards “for the ladies” today.

One of my favorite things to do is to encourage my girl friends and other women on my life’s path. I had a Mother’s Day card in mind to create, but I’ve had an excess of other work during the last couple of weeks—so I went with this butterfly one instead. It’s a card I would send to one of my dear friends as a thinking of you or a birthday or a card of encouragement, to brighten their day and make them feel special.

I began the card really just wanting to use up some of my scraps of Flowers for Every Season 6×6 DSP (item #152486, currently on sale for $6.90 on stampinup.com during the Annual’s Last-Chance sale). I found three long and skinny scraps that were around the same size and had a pretty pattern among them that I could use as a center strip.

I decided to use the Misty Moonlight color in two of the strips as the color of my card base, and I glued a mat of Very Vanilla cardstock (item #101650) atop the card base, leaving about an 1/8″ border, to give some separation and definition to the colors in the papers that would be on top. (Forgive me for the guesstimate, but I don’t really measure things; I just work with things until they feel right.)

Once I glued the patterned DSP, I felt the strips also needed some Very Vanilla to break the color clash. Those strips are definitely an 1/8″ each because I cut them with my trimmer intentionally. 🙂 I also measured the smaller edge of the DSP strips so that I could place the floral pieces in exactly the center. I use a ruler on my work mat and inch inward by eighths and quarters until I figure out where the middle is. (I do better with seeing physical measurements than with abstract figures.)

To add the butterfly, I first took a piece of recently sold-out Bijou Butterfly DSP and fussy-cut the largest butterfly with my Paper Snips before popping up the butterfly on foam Dimensionals (item #104430) in the top half of the card, leaving room for a sentiment below.

To create that sentiment, I used one of the Stitched with Whimsy Dies (item #155314) and Misty Moonlight ink (item #153118) with a sentiment from the Friends Are Like Seashells stamp set (item #158203).

I first took the die to a scrap of Very Vanilla, which impressed the stitching into the paper. The die does not cut around the stitching; I fussy-cut around it myself with my Paper Snips (item #103579) using the edge of the impression as a guide and then edged it with a Misty Moonlight Stampin’ Write Marker (item #153125 for the In-Color Pack of five).

Then I placed my sentiment stamp on my Stamparatus stamping platform (item #146276), created a few test sentiments for placement, and finally stamped it where it would fit before decorating the sentiment box with embellishments from Wonderful Gems, Blue Adhesive-Backed Gems (item #153547), 2020-2022 In Color Enamel Dots (item #152480), and Playing with Patterns Resin Dots (item #152467).

I was able to pull out each of the colors used on the card with those embellishments, so I was pleased. (The white space in the corner was just too much for me. If you follow my blog posts, you’ll have heard that I’m not a big fan of white space.) I also felt that doing something different with the gems in that way spoke to the “unique” idea of the card.

I plan on decorating the inside of the card with a thinner strip of the floral paper and then selling the card to my local gift shop so one of their buyers can encourage a friend or relative too.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today. To continue on with the hop, press the Previous and Next buttons or click on the linked names in the list. My team members always come up with inspiring and beautiful projects! Thanks again for hopping with me. If you like this card, please leave a comment or consider following my blog for future posts. 🙂

Author: Connie Troyer

I'm a cardmaker, scrapbooker, book editor, and vocal singer, but not always in that order. I juggle these things with filling card orders for my local gift shop and others and being a Stampin' Up consultant! I'm happy to help you place an order anytime if you want some craft supplies! Shop with me at http://www.stampinup.com?demoid=2202334 View all posts by Connie Troyer