Belle Papier {pretty paper}

For today’s Ways to Use it Challenge on Splitcoaststampers.com , it was suggested that I issue a challenge to find ways to use Orchid Opulence. Orchid Opulence is a color of ink and cardstock that is part of Stampin Up’s Bold Brights color family. It seems that many people have trouble using this color and it is one that I rarely use myself. In fact, I commited to the challenge, went up to my desk to create and then couldn’t find any Orchid Opulence cardstock…it seems I have never purchased any after I used up my inital assorted cardstock order! Yikes! What to do?!

If you’d like to join us by creating a project for the Ways to Use it Challenge…all are welcome. Just follow the link here.

Orchid Wish

To start off this card…I was pondering what to do! Obviously I’d have to make up for my lack of Orchid paper some way! The Orchid Opulence and Rose Red color combo popped into my mind…I always like pairing up odd color combinations to see if I can pull them off! I added chocolate chip as it has become “the new black” to me in a lot of my designs. I also thought it went well with the fun color combo…giving it a retro look. I also was thinking about trying to use a patterned paper with this design and this fun striped Rob & Bob Studio paper came to mind. I ran to my closet…sure enough…it worked perfectly! Finally something was going right!

 I decided to use Rose Red as my card base and went with a 5″ square card design as I seem to find them the easiest for me to work with. The striped layer came next to tie it all together but I still needed an orchid layer to make it work. My background stamps came to the rescue. I went through my pile trying to find the right one. I needed a stamp with lots of inking up space to get enough Orchid presence on my card. I came to the retired Linograph stamp…perfect! Fun retro feel and lots of rubber to ink. I really wish Stampin Up hadn’t retired this background stamp after only one year! It was one of my faves and had such a great feel to it for many different projects!

After matting my layers and watercoloring my image, it was time to decide on embellishments to pull it all together. I found some Orchid grosgrain from a Michael’s clearance bin in my ribbon stash and tied it through eyelets that had been set with my Crop-a-dile. You know how much I love Primas and I just had to try out my brand-new Barbado Caribbean Collection flowers from Jacksonbelle. Imagine my delight to find there were flowers with both Orchid Opulence and Rose Red touches to them! I put them both together to create a fuller blossom and set them with a Thumbtack Brad from Karen Foster Design. My friend Michele, Shel9999 inspired me to buy a package of these and now I am seriously hooked! As a last finishing touch…I added a wavy line of stitching to the bottom of my design to tie it all together!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White - Stampin Up

Patterned Paper: Rob & Bob Studio Slab - Provocraft

Stamps: Stamping Bella, Wish - Hero Arts, Linograph - Stampin Up

Ink: Basic Black, Orchid Opulence, Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Blush Blossom, Sahara Sand - Stampin Up

Other: Prima Flower - Prima Marketing, Thumbtack Brad - Karen Foster Designs, sewing machine, white eyelets - Making Memories, Crop-a-dile - We R Memory Keepers, ribbon - Michael’s

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