Quick Botanical Card

I was giving a friend a little gift with a few goodies from the Bath & Body Works Honolulu Sun line of products and I thought it would be cute to create a card that coordinated. Of course I came up with this great idea right before I had to leave!

One of the many things I love about Stampin' Up!...is their beautiful colors! So many choices make it easy to color coodinate almost anything your little heart desires! In this case - Daffodil Delight, Rich Razzleberry, Marina Mist & Wild Wasabi worked well with the gift.

With the help of the awesome Botanical Builder Dies I easily whipped up this card in under 1/2 hour and was out the door. My friend noticed right away that the card matched the gift and she thought that was the best part! (Love her!)

Had I not been in such a rush, I probably would have added a few more flowers...but for a super quick and easy card this turned out great.

Have a wonderful day!

Picture Perfect Mother's Day Easel Card

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday! It was a picture perfect Spring day here in Michigan! I was blessed to have both my boys here along with my beautiful Mom. My wonderful husband made us dinner and and the boys cleaned up...couldn't ask for a more memorable day! Here's the card I made for my Mom...

I used the color combo of Mint Macaron, Perfect Plum, Rich Razzleberry & Blackberry Bliss. I just love the way Picture Perfect and the Timeless Textures stamp sets work together. I put out a couple tutorials recently featuring projects using both of these sets. You can see them here.

I used a retired set, Blessed Mother for the sentiment and the Botanical Blooms stamps and framelits to create the flowers on the base of the card. Here's a closer look...

Clear Wink of Stella was used on the flowers and the hummingbird for some shimmer. I also made an alternate, easy to pop in the mail, version of this card.

Thank you for visiting.

Hawaiian Botanical Blooms

This has been a busy week with not much spare time to stamp or post. I did however work a little here and there to complete a two page layout using all the awesome products included in my favorite bundle from the Occasions Catalog. Here's a look at the left page...

I was so excited when I saw this bundle offered because I have a TON of vacation photos to scrap. I've been having lots of fun layering the different die cut pieces using the Botanical Builder Framelits to create a variety of different flowers. Don't you just love the look of the leaf edgelit included in the set of framelits? I used it to cut a border along the bottom of both my pages. Then I layered on my diecut flowers.The leaves were stamped first using the Botanical Blooms stamp set.

The Botanical Gardens DSP has a real tropical feel to it. I chose my color scheme from the colors used in the papers...Cajun Craze, Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow & Old Olive. I also used some Cherry Cobbler to pull in the red from my photos and substituted the Mint Macaron in favor of Pool Party because I thought Pool Party coordinated better with my photos.

Each Friday I've been sharing a flashback post featuring a retired product. This weeks Flashback Friday is kind of subtle. You probably did not pay much attention to the background pages of my layout, but I used an old favorite wheel to add a textured pattern to my otherwise solid 12x12 cardstock. I had several sheets of 12x12 So Saffron, but I didn't have any 12x12 in Hello Honey (which is what I really needed) so I just used Hello Honey Ink along with the Rough Around the Edges wheel to add texture and darken the lighter cardstock.

The strip of So Saffron card stock to the left of the wheel shows how it looked if I just wheeled over it once. However, for my background I went over it several times to get the look I wanted. Wheels with random, textured patterns are great for this technique, and it is super quick & easy...even without an ink cartridge! Here's a look at both pages of my layout...

I love the way the items in this bundle work together to easily get great results when creating a variety of different projects. This bundle includes the Botanical Blooms stamp set,  Botanical Builder Framelits and the coordinating Botanical Gardens DSP.  All of these products can be found in my Online Store.

The weather may be part of the reason I've been enjoying working on these tropical scrapbook pages so much. This is what it looks like outside my window here in Michigan today...

Here I am with Spring on my mind, and we just got blasted with around 10 inches of snow! Looking at a beautiful tropical sunset and flowers was a nice little escape!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Botanical Birthday Blossoms

This birthday card uses several items available from the Occasions Catalog and one freebie from the Sale-A-Bration catalog.

The adorable DSP is from the Love Blossoms paper stack. The prints are perfect for Valentines Day, or anytime you want cute, spring-like designs. It works well with the Botanical Builder Framelits too...which I absolutely LOVE! The die-cut leaves and the strip on the right edge are all stamped with the Timeless Textures stamp set...another favorite!

I used the Clear Wink of Stella Brush to add some shimmer to the die-cut flowers, and the center of the largest flower is cut from Blushing Bride Glimmer Paper for a real pop of glitter.  Here's a closer look...

The Happy Birthday sentiment is one of the stamps included in the FREE Sale-A-Bration set, Sky is the Limit...you know, the great set with the biplane. It's one of the "Limited Time" products only available through Feb 15th. So make sure to get it before it's gone!

Flashback Friday: Tropical Party Layout

Today I have a two page layout, using a fun, but now retired set called Tropical Party along with the coordinating Island Oasis  DSP. Both of these items were available from the 2010 Summer Mini Catalog.

The smaller flowers, palm fronds and the palm trees were stamped and cut out, while the larger flowers were cut from a piece of the DSP. I cut the title using a Sizzix Bigz Die set called Go Slim. I cut the letters from both DSP and chipboard for some added dimension.

The second page of my two page layout uses an addition retired set called Happy Hour along with the current, new set Botanical Blooms. Look how nicely the stamped and die cut leaves on the right hand side of page coordinate with the leaves in the DSP running along the bottom of the page.

Most of the elements on these two pages went together easily, but I kept going back and forth with one little piece...

See the little flagged strip of umbrella DSP on the left side of the photo...not sure I like it or not? I think it needed something, but not sure if that is the "something" it needed. It's still only attached with temporary adhesive! LOL. What do you think? With or without?

Here's a look at both pages together.

Have a wonderful weekend! I have more tropical photos from our Hawaiian vacation to scrap, so I'm going to pretend I'm somewhere warm and sunny! 

Timeless Texture Botanicals

I just love the way this card turned out! I combined several of my new favorite stamp sets, along with some of my favorite colors...

For the background layers I used a couple of the stamps from the Timeless Textures set. The Happy Birthday image is from the Sale-A-Brations set Perfect Pairings. I love that the font has a little bit of worn texture to it...which really works well with the background.

The flowers and foliage were all cut using the Botanical Builder Framelits. I just love these dies! I've been busy working on some scrapbooking pages using them...I'll share those later this week. Here's a closer look at the details...

I think you can see a little better how there is paper piercing around the circle and on the sentiment piece. The colors I used are: Hello Honey, Blackberry Bliss, Perfect Plum, Rich Razzleberry & Mossy Meadow.

Thanks for visiting today. :-)

Botanical Blooms Thank You

There are so many great bundles offered in the Occasions catalog, but my favorite has to be the Botanical Blooms Bundle! I just LOVE the beautiful die cuts and the rich colors in the paper.

During Sale-A-Bration, when you purchase this bundle you can choose a FREE Sale-A-Bration item! A favorite of mine is the Perfect Pairings stamp set which I used for the sentiment on the card above.

Botanical Blooms Birthday

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Now that the hustle & bustle of the holidays are behind us, I finally had a chance to get down in my rubber room and play with new goodies! I created this birthday card using several favorite new products that will be available in the upcoming Occasions and Sale-a-Bration catalogs.

The Botanical Blooms stamp set has an amazing set of framelits that coordinate. I just LOVE the tropical feel of the flowers and foliage! I have so many vacation photos that I plan to scrap using these! Another favorite from the Occasions catalog is a really cool set of images that help to create background texture called Timeless Textures. I used two of those images on my card. For the sentiment I used a great new set that will be perfect for creating masculine cards called Sky is the Limit. This one will only be available for a short time during Sale-a-Bration.

Here's a look at the stamps sets and the Botanical Builder Framelits...there are 14 dies in this set! I cut a piece of magnetic sheet to fit inside the envelope the dies come in to help keep track of them.
TIP: Buy magnetic vent covers from Home Depot or Lowes. There are three 8 x 15" sheets in a package for under $5.

The colors I used here are: Hello Honey, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive, Cherry Cobbler and Tangelo Twist all mounted on Whisper White Thick card stock.

The Occasions and Sale-a-Bration Catalogs will both go live on January 5th!