Stampin' on Tuesday Project 1 - April 2014

Tuesdays are a very special day for me because I get to stamp,  no matter what else is happening.  That's right, I try not to  book or make plans to do anything besides going to my craft room and having fun!  Now, I don't necessarily do that on my own, it's always more fun having friends join me. 

This past Tuesday I was blessed to have my great friend Sheri join me and we made three projects which I'm going to share with you. We had such a lot of fun.  I laugh more on Tuesdays than I do any other time of the week. I guess that says a lot about stamping and great friends!  

In the near future I'll be posting some of the class projects I'm working on.  If you're in the Fraser Valley area I hope you'll join me for one or more of them.  You can check out my calendar of events by clicking here or check out my Facebook link. 


Project # 1:  Flower Shop Happy Birthday Card 

Now that Spring's arrived I want to use all my floral stamp sets.  If you're the same, have you checked out all the great cards and projects made with the Flower Shop stamp set that are sprouting up everywhere?  Well I have, and I'm simply amazed at all the great designs featuring this lovely six piece floral set.  

In fact, there are so many great samples out there that I'd like to try, I've set up a board appropriately called Cards - Flower Shop on my Pinterest site (access from the Pinterest pin on my sidebar).  If you're looking for some terrific ideas just check there I'm sure you'll be amazed and enchanted too!

Flower Shop Clear Mount #130942 $21.95 or Wood Mount #130939 $29.95

Pansy Punch #130698 $21.95 as seen on page 183 of the Idea Book and Catalogue.

The Flower Shop stamp set is featured on page 94 of the Idea Book and Catalogue (2013/14). There are six five petal stamps detailing various floral images.  This set comes in wood and clear mount styles and coordinates with the Pansy Punch on page 183. You can use the images in so many ways.  You can stamp them on cards, use them as embellishments on gift bags and wrapping paper, or you can even turn them into stemmed flowers in a vase.  The possibilities are endless.  The Flower Shop stamp set and Pansy Punch are available separately or you save 15% of the total cost by purchasing them as a bundle until May 31st, 2014.  What a great deal!  

Inspiration:

For today's card, I took my inspiration from this one made by Sue Craig of Bensarmom blog  that was posted on Split Coast Stampers.  What I liked most about Sue's card was the clean crisp look and the free-hand cutting around the edges of the stamped flowers and  front of the card base.

 Although Sue's card was my inspiration, I didn't CAS it exactly as shown but made some subtle changes to make it my own. 

Here are the cards Sheri and I made, starting with Sheri's:

Sheri made this beautiful card which features an Elegant Eggplant card base and Flower Shop images stamped in Wisteria Wonder ink. She chose a birthday theme and changed the card opening to the bottom from the side so that the longer sentiment from the Perfectly Penned stamp set would fit.  

The Perfectly Penned stamp set has four sentiments that will work for almost any occasion. 

Sheri did an excellent job of stamping the four perfectly placed flowers on the Whisper White panel.  She managed this by twisting and fitting the stamps petal to petal. Her Whisper White layer originally measured 5 1/2 x 4 and she did not cut away the card front base around the petals like Sue's card.

The smaller flowers from the Petite Petals stamp set coordinate perfectly with the Flower Shop set.  Sheri stamped them in Elegant Eggplant ink to give some contrast when they were attached with dimensionals to the large flower images. The Petite Petals stamp set is on page 33 of the Occasions catalogue also has a coordinating punch, and is available individually or as a bundle.  Check out the bundle price, you'll save 15%.

Sheri embellished the top of her card with a strip of card stock punched out with the Scalloped Border punch in Elegant Eggplant card stock.  She also added Basic Rhinestones to the flower centers and dotted the "i" in Birthday with a small basic rhinestone.  The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Perfectly Penned stamp set and was stamped with Elegant Eggplant. 
 

For the inside of Sheri's card she cut a panel from Whisper White card stock with the Top Note Bigz Die Cut.  Plain and simple but very effective. Nice job inside and out Sheri........ I love your card!

Here is my card,which is similar in layout to Sheri's but unlike her, I struggled to place my four flowers in a straight line that would fit on the Whisper White card layer piece which originally measure 4" by 5 1/4".

Whether it was because I wasn't wearing my glasses or hadn't had lunch, I don't know, but I just couldn't stamp four whole flowers on that piece of card stock.   I even used my Stamp-a-Ma-Jig, but to no avail. The best I could manage was 3 1/2 flowers, and I did it twice! I didn't want to ruin yet another piece of card stock so I just went ahead and used the 3 1/2 flower image.  I cut around each of the flowers leaving a 1/16" border.  Need I say during my frustrating stamping experience that Sheri was giggling furiously on the other side of the table! 

Never to be outdone, or out-laughed, I decided to fix my stamping "miscalculation" by stamping an additional four flowers on a scrap of Whisper White and punched them out with the Pansy Punch.  Then I stamped four Petite Petals flower images for the centers.  I sponged both sets of flowers with Elegant Eggplant ink to add some definition.

I also sponged a very light misting of Wisteria Wonder ink above the original 3 1/2 stamped flowers to give a shadow effect and then attached the punched out flowers across the panel.  Some of the petals had to be overlapped to make the four flowers fit across the card face.

You can just see the faint shadow in the background of these flowers.  Don't they look pretty and the best part is they fit across the card face. 

For the finishing touch to this piece I cut the card stock down to  5 1/4" x 3 1/2" and used the Scalloped Border Punch on the top of this panel.  I adhered Small Basic Pearls along the base of the scalloped edge in between each scallop, and Large Basic Pearls for the centers of each of the four flowers. I also stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment in Elegant Eggplant on this layer. I loved the way this panel looked when it was adhered to the card base. 

The scallop trim border punch adds interesting detail to your projects and it's firm lever action makes it easy to punch out.  Item #118402 $20.95 on page 181 of the IB&C. 

When I began working on the inside of my card I decided to use the second "mis-stamped" piece of Whisper White card stock instead of using a Top Note layer like Sheri did.  I think it worked out okay.

This view shows how I was unable to stamp the four flowers evenly across the Whisper White layer of the card, but was still able to salvage the cardstock by using it on the inside of the card.

TIPS FOR USING THE FLOWER SHOP STAMP BUNDLE:
One thing I'd like to bring to your attention is when you use a stamp set like Flower Shop and it's coordinating punch is that it's sometimes a bit tricky to punch out the flower image nicely unless you've taken the time to line up the punch and stamp set correctly.  

Fortunately I found a video by Sam Donald on YouTube that helped remedy what could be a frustrating situation if your stamps aren't mounted properly. As you'll see in the video when the stamp and images are lined up correctly they work perfectly.

If you purchase the Flower Shop bundle through my online store, I will be happy to show you in person how to line up your stamp images and punch. 

Penny