Blue and White Charm

 Hello friends!   Hope you haven't given up on me yet.  It's been a rough week in many respects.  Hubby is doing so well and is down on the farm for a visit.  I've learned I really don't like to be here by myself this past week.  It's never bothered me before when he goes out of town, because I had so many friends dropping by to stamp and/or do lunch.  Or stick around visiting after class or club was over til all hours of the night.  That's definitely not the case here.  There have been several days in a row when I haven't seen or talked to anyone.  And I've found that my own company gets pretty boring after a while.  It all seems to affect my creativity which has gone down the tubes lately.  That's enough fussing for now.  But on a brighter note, I have been going to see both of my grandsons play ball more often.  Now, you know us grandmas, I have to brag for just a moment.  Carson's 12 and Under baseball team is ranked 1st in South Carolina for their category, 3rd in the Eastern Conference, and 12th in the nation.  Isn't that awesome?  I'm so proud of him and his team.  They really work hard together and are all great team players.  In fact, Rick and I will be traveling to Florida for a big tournament over the 4th of July holiday to see them play.  Well, I guess that's enough chit-chat, so let's get on with the stamping!

When I first saw the catalog, the Sun Prints Suite really caught my eye.  I just love blue and white together - so clean and crisp looking!  The Sun Prints Suite has a nice stamp set, dies to coordinate with it, gorgeous designer paper, and an embossing folder that works with it!  Wow!  It has it all and is gorgeous too.  The first card I wanted to make with this needed to really focus in on the Sun Prints Designer Series Paper.  Oh my, so pretty!  

To make the card, I started out with the Basic White Thick cardstock cut at 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored and folded in half.  I like white on white layers, so the next layer is Basic White cut at 5 1/4" x 4".  This is embossed with the Fern 3D Embossing Folder that is part of the suite.  It's so pretty I hated to cover up the design.  It was attached to the folded card front using Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.  I find this works best with the deeply embossed layers.

I chose to use two different designs of the Sun Prints DSP.  The first print was pretty plain with various shadings of blue.  It's cut at 2" x 4 7/8".  To give it some added interest, it's embossed with the Wrapped in Texture Embossing Folders.  (Please, forgive me!  I thought this was a current embossing folder, but it is not.  Sorry!)  I did like how the embossing sort of 'broke' the finish on the DSP and the white center shows through on the design.  I'll have to try this on another embossing folder to see how it looks.  This layer was attached to the card front with Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.  

The second print was cut with the Stitched Rectangles Dies.  Love this print!  It also was attached to the card front with Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.  So far everything is attached flat, but now we're going to start adding some dimension to the design.

For this card, I dug out an older stamp set called Lovely You - still current.  It's been around for a few years, but the words in this set are definitely worth having.  There are eleven sentiments in the set and I've used them all quite often.  I stamped the sentiment on Basic White cardstock using Night of Navy ink.  The new Stylish Shapes Die set was used to die-cut a stitched banner for the card.  This was attached with Dimensionals across the two prints.

In the Nature's Prints stamp set, there's a single flower with a stem and bud.  I stamped this with Night of Navy ink on Basic White cardstock.  A Water Painter brush was used to soften the center of the flower.  It was die-cut with the matching die from the same set.  It was attached to the banner with adhesive.

I used a piece of Baker's Twine from the Essential Pack, plus a piece of navy twine that was retired.  I didn't like the white alone, but the two together seemed just right.

The Rhinestone Basic Jewels were colored with a Dark Balmy Blue Blends.  I sprinkled four of the over the card front for some bling.  I don't usually use an even number of gems, but it looked right.  So I stopped while I was happy with the look.

The inside of the card has the same small flower and bud stamped in Night of Navy in the bottom corner to carry the design inside.  This was off-stamped before adding to the inside to keep it a little softer looking.

This is a clean and simple card look.  I love the blue and white theme.  If you do too, check out the Sun Prints DSP on page 134 of the new Annual Catalog.  The prints are really gorgeous.  I'm glad you took time out of your busy day to check this out.  Hope you like this pretty card and you try out something similar.  This card idea really lets the designer paper be the star.  If you've got some prints that you totally love, let them shine with an idea like this.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy stamping and creating!

Sharon