Country Bouquet Happiness

Hello, hello!  Hope you're doing well, and life is running along smoothly.  Seems like we're having some bumps in the road all the time lately.  But I guess that's what life is all about, isn't it?  Today I have a card to share that's pulling all kinds of odds and ends together to make a whole.  I had fun making it and hope you like it.

This is so funny - I didn't realize how Christmas-y this card looked until just now.  All because I took the picture on a green tablecloth.  Go figure...  Anyway, I had fun pulling items together to make this card.

It started with the Country Bouquet stamp set.  This is a new set in the January-April Mini Catalog.  I love this floral heart with its two-step image stamps.  It's great getting all this detail on the heart with just two stamps.  I stamped the flowers and hearts with Real Red ink onto a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock just to get a feel for the stamp.  Then stamped the leaves and stems with Garden Green ink.  I was happy enough with the placement of the images that I decided to use the image for a card.

I had recently gotten the Split Card Textures Dies and wanted to try them out.  You can find them on page 86 and on page 174 in the 2022-2023 Annual Catalog.  I die-cut the side of a top-folded Very Vanilla card with the 'plaid pattern'.  I decided that I preferred the pattern on the other side of the card, so turned the card on its side and then inside out with the die-cut pattern along the top of the card.  With having the back-side of the pattern on the front of the card, you now have much more of a textured feel to the card.  I cut a piece of Real Red cardstock that measured 5 3/8" x 4 1/8" to place inside the card to show through.  It was attached to the left side of the card with Multi Purpose Liquid Glue.

The sentiment is from the Cheerful Basket stamp set in the 2022-2023 Annual Catalog on page 35.  I really like this sentiment and it's sure to be one of my favorites in the coming months.  It's stamped with Real Red ink.  A couple of small hearts from the Country Bouquet set were stamped above the sentiment with the same ink.

At this point, I thought some Wink of Stella would be a nice touch.  It's spattered on over the entire card front.  Unfortunately, it didn't show up as much as I thought it would.  But it still gives it a nice touch when the angle of the light is just right.

The original stamped heart that I had made needed to be fussy cut from the Very Vanilla piece as there are no dies for this set.  The heart was so easy to cut out, so that really wasn't a problem.  It did need something between the card front and the heart to make it stand out more though.  After trying several ideas and promptly rejecting all of them, I ran across a 3/8" Real Red organdy ribbon that's retired.  This seemed to be the perfect match for the card.  It gave the heart some definition but wasn't too 'heavy' for the design.  I put several stripes of adhesive across the back of the heart and 'swooshed' the ribbon back and forth.  This looked much better than a bow.  After getting the ribbon situated the way I liked it, the heart was attached to the card front using Dimensionals.  I thought about adding some sort of embellishment but decided against it.

So that's it for today's post.  This is such a fun Valentine set that really doesn't have to be used for Valentine's Day.  I figured if you changed the colors on this, it could be used any time you needed a card to cheer someone up.  After changing the sentiment, it would work nicely for an anniversary card too.  Just put on your creative thinking cap and get stamping!

Reminder - as if you need reminding - Sale-a-bration is going on right now and things are busy.  Many of you were smart enough to pick up the Dainty Flowers DSP for your first free choice.   I think that's an excellent choice.  I know I'll probably end up using all mine up and need to get some more.   😄

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon