Belle Papier {pretty paper}

A fresh simple design for Saturday again. This new Penny Black image I recently got from Stamp Art is so gorgeous, simplicity is the best way to go! Nancy is fabulous and will ship anywhere so if you are looking for this image, give her a call!

Heartfelt Thanks (click on pic for detail)

For this design, I stamped my image directly on a large square of vellum cardstock. The Palette Noir Hybrid ink from Stewart Superior works fabulous on the vellum….love this ink! Now what I love about this card, you really can’t see too well in the pic. I colored the flowers in with my Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze pens. So easy and quick but it gives a great shine and dimension to the image. I bought these from Stamp Art too! The biggest problem is keeping them out of the hands of my daughter! LOL

The rest of the design is pretty simple. The card base is 5″ square of Soft Sky cardstock and layered with Purely Pomegranate and then more Soft Sky. The vellum layer is attached with black brads. For the sentiment, I used another Papertrey Ink sentiment…I just love their sentiments!

Wishing you a very happy and safe weekend! Yay for a long Canada Day weekend here! And please, make sure you wear your sunscreen!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Soft Sky, Purely Pomegranate, vellum cardstock - Stampin Up

Stamps: Penny Black, Papertrey Ink

Ink: Palette Noir Hybrid ink - Stewart Superior

Other: Black brads - Creative Impressions, Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze pens

Yay! It is Friday of the Canada Day Long weekend! It is time for more celebrating! I reached 100,000 hits on my blog earlier in the week. It is going to be a super busy weekend for me so I thought I’d wait and post it today instead!

I thought I’d do something a little different for this blog giveaway. Two prizes this time and the winners get to choose! Thought you’d like that!  Two $20.00 gift certificates from Jacksonbelle Embellishments are up for grabs! If you are one of the winners you get one of the gift certificates to buy whatever fun goodies you wish. You’ll probably already know that I buy a TON of cool stuff there all the time. And Jacksonbelle has the new cool Basic Grey Infuse line in! (Mine is already on the way.) My other favorites there….hmmmmm….Primas, Basic Grey, May Arts ribbon, Cosmo Cricket, Daisy D’s, Lizzie Anne Designs & Fancy Pants to name a few! LOL I keep giving Lindsey a list of what she needs to sell! I just may be her best customer!

So….here’s the deets!

1. One winner will be chosen by a random number generator from comments posted on THIS entry. I’d love to know how long you’ve been stamping, if you have any questions or (LOL) tell me if I’m getting too “wordy” with my posts. All suggestions are welcome!
2. The other winner will be chosen at random from my list of Feedblitz subscribers. If you wish to sign up, you can click on the orange Feedblitz button near the top of my sidebar (left side of my blog). If you use Google reader, that is fabulous, but I have no way of drawing your name with that unfortunately. Feel free to sign up for Feedblitz if you wish and then unsubscribe. I’ll totally understand.

These Belles Bonbons are open until 9pm EST Monday, July 2nd. Sometime thereafter (as soon as I’m able) I’ll draw  the two names and post them to my blog. Good luck! Thanks so much for supporting me these past few months and for visiting my blog! You guys rock! {{{{{{{{{{friends}}}}}}}}}}

Edited to add… LOL Didn’t realize I’d put in so many smilies into one post!

I love scallops! I’m sure you’ve figured that out, especially since my theme over the past few weeks (for the most part anyways, LOL) has been scallops. I love the scalloped punches, scallops on stamps, slit punch scallops…they are all so fun. I decided that it would be fun to have a challenge for Ways to Use Scallops today! If you’d like to play along, check out thread WT119 thread on SCS! Everyone is welcome. Also, if you missed them, you may also want to check out these past entries…. Slit Punch Scallops Tutorial & History and Scalloped Punches {C’est Bon}.

Bowl of Cherries

For this card design….I just had to use some more of my new Stampin Up In Colors. I wasn’t sure about this Wild Wasabi color when I first saw it in person, but pairing it up with Purely Pomegranate and Soft Sky….love it! I also wanted to use my brand new Hero Arts stamp that I picked up at Stamp Art. So pretty! I stamped the image onto a piece of Soft Sky cardstock and then watercolored it with my  Aquapainter. It is a little difficult to see, but the cherries were then highlighted with my Sakura Clear Glaze pen to add a little shine.

The sentiment is a clear stamp by Papertrey Ink…from the Little Lady set. I thought it worked perfectly. I first inked up the first part of the stamp and stamped it at the top of my panel and after cleaning it well, I reinked up the last part and stamped it at the bottom. 

For the background, I used one of my favorite background stamps, Flannel Plaid from Stampin Up. I stamped it onto the Soft Sky cardstock with its coordinating ink. I love the subtle texture it adds..  The card base is  5″ square of Wild Wasabi and I adhered the Soft Sky layer and stitched it together. Now here’s where the scallops finally come in…. I created a little scalloped strip using my Slit Punch Scallops and then stitched on a little piece of blue gingham ribbon. For final touches, I punched little tab with my round tab punch & stitched it on. I couldn’t resist adding a little Cherry Blossom Prima to tie in with the bowl of cherries…so cute!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Wild Wasabi, Soft Sky, Purely Pomengranate - Stampin Up

Stamps: Bowl of Cherries - Hero Arts, Little Lady - Papertrey Ink, Flannel Plaid - Stampin Up

Ink: Palette Noir Hybrid - Stewart, Soft Sky, Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi - Stampin Up

Other: sewing machine, Aquapainter, slit punch, round tab punch, ribbon- Stampin Up, brad - Doodlebug Designs, Cherry Blossom - Prima,

Another Take Two challenge with my friends. I’m really late on this one. When it rains, it pours! My oldest son who is 16 was out early this morning cycling. He had just finished 33 km and was almost home when a car hit his shoulder with the side mirror and knocked him down. A hit and run. He made it to the high school which was not too far away. Thankfully the teachers were there, still marking exams. They called the Police and then myself. I’ve spent the past 6 hours getting it straightened out and sitting with him in the ER. He is now covered with road rash and a lot of swelling but we are so thankful nothing was broken. His new bike helmet was cracked in the accident. We are so thankful he was wearing it.

 And so, I’m just now getting around to typing up this card design I made yesterday. The Take Two challenge this time was to use Stampendous stamps with Daisy D’s patterned paper. Oh so fun! I adore the few Stampendous stamps I own, and my favorite is these poppies. Jacksonbelle also got in a huge selection of Daisy D’s paper. I love it so much, I had to buy one of each. It was a real difficult choice deciding which ones to pick for this design, let me tell you! As always, I’m amazed at the different looks we have all achieved with a similar product. So fun! Make sure that you check out Lindsey, Michele & Trudee’s blogs for their fabulous designs!

Poppy Wishes

For this design, I stamped directly onto the pink patterned paper and lightly watercolored it. The Best Wishes sentiment is actually a partial sentiment….I omitted the rest of it and have stamped it on the inside. It just naturally worked well that way. Now the T may not make sense to you until I tell you this is a birthday card for a good friend of mine. Her first initial is T. This monogram comes as part of the Daisy D’s Baby Girl patterned paper kit. The monograms and papers are gorgeous…perfect for a baby girl but perfect for any girl, of any age, IMHO. To finish up, I added some of my stitching and a little sponging, a favorite Cherry Blossoms Prima and a little ribbon. Sure hope she likes it! Happy Birthday, T!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White - Stampin Up

Patterned Paper: Baby Girl - Daisy D’s

Stamps: Poppies - Stampendous, sentiment - Penny Black

Ink: Close to Cocoa, Purely Pomegranate, Old Olive - Stampin Up, Palette Noir Hybrid - Stewart

Other: Cherry Blossom flower - Prima, sewing machine, black embossing powder - Stampendous, ribbon - Michael’s, Thumbtack Brad - Karen Foster Design

The Slit Punch Scallops technique turned one year old (LOL)  two weeks ago today. I thought I’d “celebrate” with a short tutorial but it just didn’t happen at the time because I was wanting to spend that time with my mom. MUCH more important, I’m sure you will agree! I decided to go ahead and do it now, even though I’m a little late. The Slit Punch Scallops have become widely popular over the past year. I always love adding them in. You may be wondering why I know the history of the slit punch scallops…well, I was there!

It All Started…

It all started last June (2006). I was so excited to be asked to be part of the Splitcoaststampers Fan Club Design Team. OK….that might be an understatement! LOL I was really hard at work coming up with new ideas and stretching my skillz. The first month is always a little nerve-racking I must say! I had finished all my designs and was working on a few extra ideas I had. My last card I actually finished the inside first as it had acute little inside feature and I was just trying to come up with something for the front. Hmmmmmmm….. Nothing was happening. I wasn’t going to give up though as I loved that inside. Rummaging through my drawer for inspiration, I found my slit punch and pulled it out. It had been neglected in my drawer for a while so I decided to see what I could do with it. I was thinking I could repeat the slits at intervals along the edge when it just occured to me that I could keep punching. So easy! Eureka! I was bouncing. Then I thought….wait! Julie Ebersole (the Splitcoaststampers.com Design Team leader and stamper extrordinaire) uses a lot of scallops. She MUST have done this before. I quickly scanned her gallery and didn’t seen any but you know, Julie has a HUGE gallery. I  e-mailed her and asked. I was very excited to get the quick reply….Nope, it’s all yours girl! Yay! And so I’ve used Slit Punch Scallops on my card design and many others these past 12 months as have many other stampers. I’ve also seen some great variations such as slit punch scallops around a circle. How cool is that? Thanks Geny for helping me remember where I saw it. How could I forget?! Sarah Moore came up with it and you can check it out at Sarah & the Stampstars.  If you have a SCS Fan Club membership and want to check out my original design, you can see it here… Friendship Files & Friendship Files Open

Slit Punch Scallops Tutorial

1. Gather supplies - simply some cardstock or patterned paper & your Stampin Up Slit Punch

2. Turn slit punch upside down so that you can see where to line up your punches.

3. Slide cardstock into punch up to the hilt to get even punching. Punch a scallop.

4. Slide punch along until left side of punch “window” lines up with right side of last punch. Press down and punch scallop.

5. Repeat until you have complete scalloped strip.

Ideas for Slit Punch Scallops

• punch cardstock
• punch patterned paper
• punch small holes into the scallops
• set eyelets in the scallops
• Stampin Up’s Alphadots set fits perfectly into the scallops
• make an awning with the scallops
• use the negative shape of the scallops to make waves

Kind Friend Gift Card Design

This is the card I designed to go with my Slit Punch Scallops Tutorial. I just love this new Brocade Background designer paper from Stampin Up. It will be available in the new catalogue, July 1st! To make this card, I started out with a piece of cardstock in the new … 4.25″ wide by 11 inches long. Just a regular piece of cardstock, cut in half lengthwise instead of cross-wise. Score the card 2.5″ from one edge and 3″ from the other and fold each panel toward the middle. Easy! I then covered the front panels with the designer paper and sponged the edges with Close to Cocoa ink. I then punched my Slit Punch Scallops out of designer paper and adhered it to the top panel edge. For a little extra support and also for texture and interest, I zig zag stitched the overlapping layers together. In the center of the scallops, I punched holes and set pewter eyelets with my Crop-a-dile.

For the main image, I stamped the stylized motif in Wild Wasabi onto the cardstock and then sponged the edges. The square was then matted with designer paper that matched the scallops and then a very narrow mat of very vanilla cardstock. Before adhering the panel to my card front, I stitched the layers together and then stamped Friend. In the center of motig, I adhered a button tied with some linen thread. I got this absolutely darling bag of Autumn Leaves Foofala buttons from my local scrapbook store and I can’t wait to use them again.

The bottom panel is the last part of the design I worked on. I stamped the flourish with my Canvas Palette Hybrid ink and then sprinkled on some Vanilla embossing powder. Because this ink dries so quickly, only some of the embossing powder stuck to the ink. I quickly heated it up and was really pleased with the results. It really has a distressed embossing powder look! Cool! I then stamped kind on the front bottom corner and tucked a small piece of patterned paper behind the bottom flap and stitched it on. Then for the thing I love most about this design….the bottom flap is adhered with two strips of Terrifically Tacky tape at each each. This makes a darling little pocket to put a gift card into!

Lastly, for the inside sentiment…I goofed! But it was a good “goof”! LOL I stamped the sentiment crooked. I KNOW…should have used my Stampamagig. I quickly saved the card by stamping my sentiment again on a scrap of River Rock cardstock, sponged the edges and then matted it with more designer paper. I like it even better this way!

Kind Friend Open

Supply List:

Cardstock: River Rock, Very Vanilla - Stampin Up

Patterned Paper: Brocade Background - Stampin Up

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Everyday Flexible Phrases, Stamp of Authenticity - Stampin Up

Ink: Wild Wasabi, Close to Cocoa - Stampin Up, Pallette Noir and Canvas Pallette Hybrid inks - Stewart

Other: button - Autumn Leaves, linen thread & Glue dots & Slit Punch, Vanilla Embossing powder (retired) - Stampin Up, pewter eyelets - Making Memories, Crop-a-dile - We R Memory Keepers, sewing machine,

No scallops today…but I’ll be back with more tomorrow! I just received my brand new Text Boxed stamp set in the mail from Papertrey Ink….yay! What a gorgeous set! I needed to make my daughter a card for her graduation tomorrow night. I can’t believe she is off to high school next year. They grow up WAY too fast!  I know it will be a difficult night for me. I’m so wishing my mom could share it with us like she did three years ago when James graduated. I’m trying to make the night as special as I can though and I’m so glad that my mom was able to see my daughter in her dress a couple months ago when she was still able to enjoy it.

Vellum Flowers Celebrate

I just adore vellum cards. They seem to be just a little special. I thought it would be a perfect look for this new Text Boxed set. I love its fresh look! This card is made from a 4.25″ square vellum cardstock base. Such an easy size and it still fits into a standard card envelope.

Quick Tip: If you are making a vellum card, you will want to use the heavier weight, cardstock vellum. I love the Stampin Up Vellum cardstock….it is the perfect weight for so  many things!

After making the vellum card base, I stamped on the front of it with my new Versamagic dew drops chalk ink. This ink was developed for use on vellum and will dry well on it whereas many inks will have difficulty drying on vellum. I love its soft, chalky matte look.

For the main image, I stamped my main image onto white textured Bazzill Basics cardstock with Versmagic Ink. It is a gorgeous soft aqua color, very similar to Cool Caribbean…maybe even better! After matting the image with the new Soft Sky cardstock from Stampin Up, I set eyelets into the flower centers with my Crop-a-dile. I tied a little scrap of pink gingham ribbon throught the top eyelet for a simple embellishment. The sentiments were all words from the same Text Boxed stamp set. I stamped them across the image and then used the Celebrate stamp from the Little Lady Papertrey Ink stamp set on the vellum.

To finish off the inside, I adhered a smaller square of the white cardstock to the inside and then an even smaller square of soft sky on top of it. A perfect little spot to easily write my message.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Vellum, Soft Sky - Stampin Up, White - Bazzill Basics

Stamps: Text Boxed, Little Lady - Papertrey Ink

Ink: Versamagic - Tsukineko, Pallette Noir Hybrid Ink - Stewart

Other: eyelets - Making Memories, gingham ribbon, Crop-a-dile - We R Memory Keepers

I love the Sakura Quickie Glue Pen! What a great little product! So inexpensive…so great for getting a small amount of glue just where you need it. The Quickie Glue Pen works just like a gel pen. The gel ink rolls out nicely from a ball-point nib in a very controlled line. No more blobs and “gunk”. Storage is so easy…store it with your pens, markers, however you wish. The pen does not leak and only takes up a small amount of space. Another great feature of the pen is you can use it two ways. The gel glue goes on blue, making it very easy to see exactly where you have already put it. Use it this way when you want a permanent bond. As the gel glue dries, it turns clear.

Uses for the Sakura Quickie Gel Pen

• perfect for adding glitter
• great for adding a touch of glue in those tiny difficult to glue areas
• add highlights with Flocking adhered with the Quickie Gel Pen
• use it as a temporary glue when you are not quite ready to commit to a final adhesion

Where to get it…

LOL I bought two! One for me and one for part of my upcoming blog giveaway. (It will be in the upcoming week so stay tuned, ) I bought both of them from different places…

• Ellen Hutson carries them at her on-line store
• Nancy from Stamp Art carries them in her store and will also take phone orders

Thinking of You

This is my card sample for the glue pen and also a card for my husband’s sister and my good friend. She recently lost her baby three months into the pregnancy. They had been told they couldn’t have any children and had given up hope and so this is especially hard.

For this card, I stamped my Fancy Pants stamp (love this set!) that my good friend Jacksonbelle gave me for my birthday. Isn’t she a sweetie?! I watercolored it with my aquapainter and then allowed it to dry. In the centers of the three of the flowers, I added these darling little pink pearl stickers. I then accented some of the flowers and the vines by going over them with my Sakura Quickie Glue Pen and then sprinkling it with Dazzling Diamonds glitter from Stampin Up.

Close-up of Glitter

Along the side of the panel, I added some interest by punching along the edge with my small corner rounder from EK Success. Still on my scalloped theme here! In the center of each scallop, I punched a little hole with my Crop-a-dile. I just set the depth guage again on the side to the smallest depth and punched away….so easy! I matted my white layer with Bravo Burgundy and then tied a nice little ribbon around the panel to break up the design visually. Under the ribbon, I stamped a little flower stamp from the same Fancy Pants set and then over top of it, I stamped Thinking of You. I love that sentiment stamp…it is part of the Lizzie Anne Designs set.

The base of this design is a 4″x9″ Tall card base of Lavendar Lace. For the final touch, I added a darling tiny Prima over a piece of lavendar gingham ribbon from Michael’s. It is always so fun to use up tiny scraps…sometimes that is all you need!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Lavendar Lace, Bravo Burgundy, Whisper White - STampin Up

Stamps: Fancy Pants, Lizzie Anne Designs

Ink: Palettte Noir Hybrid Ink - , Bravo Burgurndy, Lavendar Lace, Old Olive - STampin up, Ribbons - Michael’s,

Other: Dazzling Diamonds Glitter & Aquapainter - Stampin Up, brad - Creative Impressions, Prima flower - Prima Marketing, Quickie Glue Pen - Sakura, small corner rounder - EK Success, Crop-a-dile - We R Memory Keepers

Yippee! New paper, ink, stamps… I just couldn’t resist pulling them out and making this card to try them out! I can’t decide what my favorite new color is! I just adore the Pomegranate, the Groovy Guava, Soft Sky…those are my top picks but I love the others too. The Soft Sky is gorgeous but I must say…I’m going to go through Cool Caribbean withdrawal! I purchased quite a bit of cardstock so I don’t run out. I’m really going to have to find an option to replace it from another company who has a similar color that is current. Any suggestions?

To keep this card simple, I reused a layout from last week’s Simple Saturday card! LOL I loved it’s clean lines and thought using it again would make this quick and easy for me. This time around, it is a stamped-style version. I’m up at the lake for the day today and wanted to design this card quickly yesterday as I had lots to do. Saturday cards should be simple, IMHO. Time for family is so important.

Baroque Cherish

For this card, I just decided to reuse last week’s layout as I mentioned above. I made a 5.25″ square card base from Pomegranate cardstock and stamped on it with the flourish stamp and my new Canvas Hybrid ink. I also inked the edges with it…wow….I LOVE how fast it dries! I’m always so impatient with white craft and tend to smear it! LOL I added layers in Soft Sky and Groovy Guava and stamped the decorative flower stamp on each of the square panels. These little Soft Sky layers and the larger one are all distressed on the edges with my little pink Heidi Swapp distressing tool for texture. To add a little more dimension, I inserted little Wedgewood blue brads by Making Memories in the centers. The cherish sentiment was stamped in Versamark and embossed with white embossing powder. I wanted to add one more touch, but couldn’t decide what to do! I finally decided to try stamping the flourish on a scrap piece of paper. Choosing a flourish section I thought might work well, I laid it over the layer and then pierced the design through the scrap paper and into the layer using my paper piercer and my mat pack.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky, Groovy Guava - Stampin Up

Stamps: Baroque Motifs - Stampin Up

Ink: Purely Pomegranate - STampin Up, Canvas Hybrid Ink, Versamark - Tsunkineko

Other: brads & Paper Piercer- Making Memories, White embossing Powder - Stampendous, Edge Distresser - Heidi Swapp

Now I know this card looks a little “warm” for this time of year! This gorgeous Daisy D paper arrived from Jacksonbelle’s Embellishments and this darling slipper stamp from Ellen Hutson, both about a week ago. Well, they just HAD to go together. I thought they both had that warm, cozy, get well soon feel. And seeing as I don’t currently have any Get Well cards in my stash, I thought it might be good to make one to have on hand. It was also a fairly cool, windy day here for this time of year and a cozy looking card was just what I wanted to make. This card design also works for yesterday’s WT square card challenge and I’m back on my scalloped theme. I was having so much fun with it, I’m going to pick up where I left off and keep it going for a few more designs.

Cozy Get Well Soon

I just love the edging on these darling Daisy D papers. They come as 5.5″ square double-sided paper with prefinished edges. If you don’t like the edges….just trim them off, there is still plenty of paper to work with for a card design. I love hoe the patterns are scaled down to go with the small size. I usually make my square cards 5″ square or 5.25″ square. If I forget to specify, you can just assume they are that size. Because I wanted to work with this paper’s edge, I made this card 5.5″ square. Oh hey! I just thought of something! Wouldn’t this paper be darling for a 6×6 scrapbook page?! While going through photos, looking for pics of my mom for a collage frame, I was enjoying so many good memories and thought it was a shame that they were all tucked away in boxes. I simply MUST start scrapping again! I’m thinking I’ll start small….a small mini album, or something along the lines of 6×6 size. It is not much larger than the cards I’m used to designing and well within my comfort zone. I don’t need huge projects or extra stress…smaller is better for me!

I used lots of edge sanding on this card to define the edges and bring out the design. This works really well as the patterned paper is very dark. I love how well the all the different patterns work together. The only cardstock used is the card base of Bravo Burgundy. For the background, I stitched around the patterned paper layer with my sewing machine…another comfort-look. I always think sewing reminds my of home and hand-crafted elements.

For the image, I stamped my little slippers onto oneof the patterned papers with Versamark Ink and then heat embossed with with Black embossing powder. Using small Fiskars scissors, I carefully trimmed it out. I then punched out a piece of green patterned paper from the swatches with a Mega Marvy Circle punch. The red was then punched with my Giga Marvy Scalloped Circle punch. After sanding edges and adhering the slippers, I stitched around in a circle. A little tied strip of May Arts ribbon runs under the image and around the card for some texture.

Quick Tip: When stitching in a circle, take two or three stitches while guiding around the curve, then with needle in down position, lift presser feet and turn slightly. This keeps the circle curve stitching as smooth as possible.

The last thing to add was the sentiment. I wasn’t quite sure how to incorporate it into the design. There wasn’t any room left in the circle for it and the paper design was quite busy and dark…stamping on it would be difficult to read. Inspiration finally struck. I would put the sentiment on the inside with it peeking through to the front with a punched window. I punched a large oval in  my card front. I then stamped and embossed my sentiment and punched it out with the smaller oval punch. It is so easy to adhere to the inside this way from the front to get it perfectly centered and the inside Bravo Burgundy cardstock makes a nice little frame and helps tie the design together. Voila, a comfy, cozy get well card.

Wishing you all a wonderful and sunny weekend!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Bravo Burgundy - Stampin Up

Patterned paper: Attic Heirloom Swatches - Daisy D’s

Stamps: Slippers - Lockhart, Faux Ribbon set - Papertrey Ink

Ink: Versamark - Tsunkineko

Other: Sewing machine, oval punches - Stampin Up, Mega Circle punch and Giga Scalloped Circle punch - Marvy, sandpaper, ribbon - May Arts, claret embossing powder

Thursday again! Seems like a very long time since last Thursday…it is amazing how fast everything can change. I managed to come up with a card yesterday but  then had to scramble for a Ways to Use it Challenge idea to fit it! LOL The challenge…a rather lame one LOL, is to Use square card designs. I’m sure that everyone will be able to play along. (wink) If you’d like to join in this week’s WT118 challenge, all are welcome!

Grateful Blossoms

This card is just not my favorite, but I’m sure you’ll forgive me under the circumstances. I found my new Rhonna Farrer Autumn Leaves stamps on my desk from last week and decided to give them another whirl. It is the Autumn set that I used for my Laugh Every Day card. I bought the set from Scrappin’ Great Deals, a great new scrapbook supply store I just discovered recently.

The card base is 5″ sqare base made from Regal Rose cardstock. After stamping the doodle-style branches onto the kraft cardstock in black Stazon ink, I matted it with whisper white and adhered it to the card base. The image was then stamped on Whisper White and watercolored with a new tiny aquapainter-style brush by EK Success. I love the tiny tip and the control you get with it! I bought mine from Nancy at Stamp Art. Nancy will ship anywhere if you call her!

Quick Tip: Use Black Stazon instead of Basic Black when stamping with clear polymer stamps. I find you get a better impression and the ink beads less on the stamp.

After matting the image in black cardstock, I added a small strip of Cool Caribbean cardstock and layered it with a darling black strip of paper ric rac from Doodlebug Designs. It comes in a whole package of darling trims and you can purchase them in a wide variety of colors. The card still needed a little embellishment so I pulled out my Stampin Up Mat Pack and paper piercing tool and pierced little holes at the top of my image. I then took linen thread and a large needle and hand-stitched a few little stitches. Above the stitches I embossed “grateful” as the sentiment with black embossing powder. I’m sure you will be seeing lots of thank you cards on this blog in the near future. I have so many people to thank! I couldn’t leave the card without adding a little Cherry Blossom from Prima. I just adore any Prima (as you well know, wink) but these ones are one of my faves. In the center, I added a little Making Memories gem…a lovely little pearl sticker.

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit. Hope you have a wonderful day!