Hello all of you amazing crafters and welcome back to the blog! Today in the US we are celebrating Thanksgiving, a favorite holiday of mine. I am typically spot on with dinner plans, lists made days or weeks in advance. This year though, I have dropped the planning ball! We have already been to the only open grocery store in town TWICE by 1 pm!! Having said that, I am thankful for my family, great friends, food on the table, and a job to pay the bills and supply me with crafty stuff. I also can’t wait until dinner is ready because that bird smells AMAZING!
I do have a crafty project to share with you all today as well. A few weeks ago, my husband and I spent a weekend away in Fort Collins, Colorado. One of the many stores we visited was Scrap 2 It. I LOVE visiting this crafty store. The owner is amazing and has just about everything you could want or need to finish your projects. If you are ever in the Fort Collins, Colorado area, you must stop in and visit. You can also checkout her website by clicking the link here – Scrap2itstore.com
While she was visiting with my husband I started to wander the store. Of course there was a shopping list, but I also found a few items I could not live without. The Go For It stamp set and the hot foil plate from Pink Fresh Studio were too cute to pass up. I didn’t see the coordinating die, so I asked if maybe I just overlooked it. Sadly that was not the case; it was sold out. The owner was sweet enough to look through her stash to see if she had a die, but denied again. She asked if I wanted to order it and she would send it to me, and I said Yes Please! The die came in the mail a couple of days ago and last night I sat down and made a card!
I started this card by stamping the Go For It flower bouquet twice onto a piece of 110lb Recollections card from Michaels with amalgam ink. Grabbing my Polychromos pencils I began by adding light layer of cadmium yellow to the petals. Then I added a layer of chrome yellow for the shadows. Following that, another layer of cadmium yellow was added to really brighten up the flowers.
I used the same technique for the leaves. Starting with light green, then a bit of emerald green for the shadows, and finally back to the light green for the shine.
The finished panel looked pretty cool as it was, but it needed something. When I stamped the image with my misti, I left the stamp in place. That was just a lazy move, but it came in handy to restamp the images. That added the definition back to the blossoms and I loved the look!
The next decision was the background, and I had no clue what to do there. So rather than think too hard on it, I tried figuring out how to place both bouquets on the card front. Try as I might nothing looked good until I did something I have difficulty with – cutting my images apart. It hurts my heart, but I snipped the second bouquet into pieces and started again.
On to the background. I tried a few different ideas and when I found the one I liked, it was already finished. So, no photographs, oops! Grabbing my Diamond Tiles background stamp by Pink Fresh Studios, I stamped it with Antique Linen distress ink. Adding a bit more of the distress ink to the background with a blending brush helped soften some of the harsher stamped lines. The panel was cut down with the largest die in the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle set and measeures 3 3/4″ x 5″. Again I added a bit more of the distress ink to the edges and boom, happy background!
To place the florals down I started by gluing the individual flowers down and then added the full bouquet on top of that. I thought about using thin foam squares, but decided against it since it’s going in the mail soon.
The final bit was the card base. I started this entire process with white card stock and putting this antique linen background on a white card looked silly. So I wrapped a piece of paper around the back side of my card base and added a light layer of Antique Linen distress ink to the card front.
The sentiment is from a huge 118 piece Craft Smart stamp set from Michaels. It was stamped with Black Soot Distress archival ink. I am so happy with this card and I already know who is going to receive it!
Thanksgiving can be a rather hectic day with friends and family, but finishing this card this morning helped relax me before the chaos of the kitchen took over. I hope you all had a lovely day and thank you so much for stopping by. I’ll see you again soon!