Spring is finally here (albeit with windy, wet weather!) and as the flowers are starting to bloom, I’m in the mood for some floral cardmaking.
Today’s cards feature my PaperArtsy Eclectica ESN67 stamp set—this is the one I call “Mom’s Garden”. My mother loves flowers and plants, and her garden is amazing. Also in the spirit of spring (and perhaps with inspiration from Mom), I’m working through a bit of a de-stash in my studio. For these projects, I’m using patterned papers from the Artoptions Viken pack from 49 and Market. Because these are older, they may be tricky to find in shops, so I encourage you to check your own stash for floral papers that could work for you. 🙂
Here are the stamps, and a little look at the paper pack—
Here’s an easy way to create a soft, subtle floral focal—
For this card, I’ve stamped the floral image with black pigment ink, then clear-embossed it.
I painted in the flowers with watery dye-based ink. Simply squash your inkpads onto your craft mat (look how grubby mine is!), then use a damp brush to make a wash, and paint in the image. I’m using Hunkydory inks for this.
I die-cut the focal into a rectangle and layered it onto a scalloped die-cut. I’m using these dies from Paper Wishes—I love them because the simple matting adds presence to the stamped image, creating a frame with some dimension that doesn’t distract from the focal. I’ve layered it onto a nest of gold metallic embroidery thread, which I taped down onto the card front before adding the matted focal.
Here’s another look—
The “finding joy” floral image is on the smaller side, about 2 1/4″ x2 3/4″—so it works perfectly on tags, journal pages and smaller cards… and you can easily enlarge the image with matting, so it fits on larger cards like this 5″ x 6 1/2″ base.
I’ve repeated the same technique of stamping and embossing, and painting in with dye inks.
A little gemstone accents the flower center.
I love the shine from the embossing.
One more card design for you today—this one is using one of my favorite quotes as the focal.
I played around with the positioning of the quote on this piece of patterned cardstock. I tested it out with my MISTI and a piece of scrap paper first, placing the patterned paper and the stamp where I *thought* they would line up, then slipping a piece of scrap paper down to make sure.
The stamping is also clear-embossed.
Then I added some handmade paper floral embellishments, also part of my de-stash, and a bit of green embossing around the outside edge of the patterned paper.
And there we go—a little spring cleaning, a little spring stamping! I hope you enjoyed the projects and hope it inspires you to have a look into your own paper and stamp stash!
