Gallery Blooms Simple Card

Hello friends!  Hope you're enjoying this Memorial Day!  Please take time to remember the brave and wonderful men and women of the Armed Forces that gave their lives and futures to protect our country and preserve liberty for us all.  "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13 How blessed we are to live in this country and enjoy all the freedoms that we take for granted daily.  Let us be thankful for how blessed this nation has been through the years and ask God's continued hand of guidance and blessing to rest upon us.

I recently received an order that included the Gallery Blooms bundle and the coordinating Beautiful Gallery Designer Series Paper.  I kept telling myself that I didn't need every floral set that came along, but obviously I couldn't resist this one.  The first card made with this set was quite simple and straightforward.  Nothing fancy, just the stamps and some cardstock.

I think this card is really quite beautiful even though it's rather simple.  Let me take you through the process of making it.

The first decision made was to stamp the flowers from the Gallery Blooms onto Very Vanilla cardstock using the new Secret Sea ink.  Since I was making one, I decided to make two of these flower stems and have an extra for another card.  After stamping, I used a Wink of Stella brush to sort of lightly "watercolor" the flower petals.  I only used the ink that was already there from stamping the flowers to keep it very pale.  I also used Wink of Stella to color the leaves, but this time used extra ink from the pad.  This gave the leaves the darker coloring.  I was surprised how very light this dark ink could be and how pretty it turned out.  No matter how many different ways I tried to picture this, the shimmer of the Wink of Stella just didn't want to show itself but believe me it's there.

After the coloring the two flower stems, the coordinating die was used to cut the flowers out.  Now, what to do with them?

I decided on a card base of Cloud Cover cardstock for the first card.  This is a lovely soft blue/gray color.  It measures 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" and is scored and folded in half.  

Next is a layer of Secret Sea that measures 5 1/4" x 4".  This was embossed with the new Damask Designs Embossing Folder.  Even though the design isn't really obvious when looking at the card straight on, it shows up nicely at an angle.  This left a really elegant look to the background.  And I always love the feel of embossed texture on my cards.  

This layer was attached to the folded card base.  Tombow MultiPurpose Liquid Glue, also known as "green glue", was used to attach them together.  

As I was in the process of making this card, I had another card in pieces on the side.  One of the extra pieces from this card was a 3/4" strip cut from the bottom of one of the Beautiful Gallery DSP prints.  This was a mottled gray strip that I liked with the card I was making here.  I cut the strip to measure 4" and attached it across the card front with "green glue".

The sentiment used here is from the new Beautiful Motifs stamp set.  This set has eight great sentiments that are very general and a good size.  I'm sure these are sentiments I'll be using often.  This one is stamped on a Very Vanilla 1/2" strip using Secret Sea ink.  It was trimmed some to fit the card.

The stem of flowers was attached to the card front with Dimensionals.  The sentiment was just tucked under the stem and popped up with Dimensionals also.

Since I have the 2025-2027 In Color Flat Pearls that match these colors, I chose to use the Cloud Cover gems and attached three of them.  I think they show up nicely on the Secret Sea background, don't you?

Okay, that's the first design I've made using the Gallery Blooms bundle.  I still have that second flower that is already stamped, colored, and ready to go.  If all goes well, the next card should be making an appearance here tomorrow.

One last picture of this card using the new Gallery Blooms bundle with a couple of the new 2025-2027 In Color cardstock colors.  This turned out to be a very clean and simple card design.  It was also easy to make.  I've seen several cards made with this stem of flowers on Pinterest that were colored much more brightly.  But as you can see, these soft grays are quite beautiful too.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.  Hope you were inspired to get out your stamps and paper and then get creative.  I always find it uplifting and satisfying to create something beautiful that I can share with you.  I'm so glad you find time to visit.

Feel free to leave your comments at the end if you'd like.  If you have any questions or need some help, I'd love to hear from you.  You can always contact me through my email at sharoncarr50@gmail.com.  Looking forward to hearing your comments.

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon