April Showers Bring…

This month’s challenge for the i {heart} papers Design Team was to use flowers. Well, that’s an easy one for me! So I decided to combine it with this week’s sketch challenge from Our Craft Lounge. I must say that it did turn out to be an unusual color combination for me.

I started with the beautiful bouquet image from the Flowers For You set (an oldie by goodie that Kate happens to have on sale!). I colored it with my Copic markers (see below for the colors), and then went about figuring out how to give it some texture and dimension. 

The first thing I thought of was Flower Soft, so after I cut it out with my Nestabilities, I used some of the new Ultra Fine stuff and tiny little dabs of their glue on the flowers that appear towards the back of the bouquet. Then I remembered that I had some adorable tiny wired roses in my stash. I punched two small holes at the sides of the stems where I wanted them to be tied together, and ran some narrow golden yellow silk ribbon through, catching the stems in it and tying it off tightly on the back. I made a small bow using the same ribbon and my Bow Easy, and attached it with a couple of mini glue dots, hiding the holes I had punched.

I had chosen my colors with the plan of using this paper from the Basic Grey Green at Heart 6x6 pad. I think the “grandma’s wallpaper” feel of this piece complements the bouquet nicely. I have no idea what made me use the yellow, but I think it just makes the card look so sunny and happy!

What I used:
Stamps: Flowers for You
Ink: Memento Black; Copic markers (YG93, G94, G99, RV19, RV29, R21, R22)
Paper: Green at Heart; Old Olive, Summer Sun (SU!); Berry Sorbet (PTI)
Other: Golden Yellow 1/4” Silk Ribbon, Bow Easy, Circle and Petite Circle Nestabilities, wired roses, Flower Soft, SU! circle punch, PTI twill ribbon 

We’d love to have you play along with the IHP challenge. Surely you can think of a way to use flowers! If you post it to one of the galleries (SCS or PCP), use the tag/keyword ihp0410 so we can find it. Check out what the rest of the design team did, and then make your own. 

• Cathleen
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Kendra
• Loretta
• Lori
• Lynn
• Megan
• Tracy
• Kate

Happy stamping!