A Tulip Bouquet and a Favorite Flower

There are several challenges open now, and two of the themed challenges were the inspiration for these cards. The first is Seize the Birthday where the challenge is “Make it a Bouquet.”

When I saw The Greetery’s April Release, my resolve to refrain from buying new stamps and dies dissolved, and it was these tulip dies and the “Market Basket” that did me in. This is a pretty close, but simpler, CASE of one of the cards Betsy Veldman made for the release. I know my mother-in-law will love this, and her birthday is in early July.

I die cut the tulips and leaves from Bristol Smooth paper and used a variety of Distress Inks to color them, and then assembled them. When I arranged the bouquet I also added some of The Greetery’s Botanic-cut Wildflowers that I had previously made. I added the bouquet to a slimline die by Pinkfresh Studio, and then to a white slimline card base. 

The Market Basket was die cut from gold paper and lined with a piece of vellum. I love the little handles and label. The stamp set for the labels covers a multitude of occasions, so I expect I’ll fill the basket with flowers frequently. There are also two smaller baskets in the die set.

The second floral challenge was The Flower Challenge’s Favorite Flower challenge. 

When we arrived on Kiawah Island in April, I purchased a lovely little bouquet for the table from a local farmstand. The purple anemones were just gorgeous, and I ordered some for our garden. They’re just beginning to come up, but we think we may have lost a couple to the squirrels. Tracy covered them with netting yesterday, so I’m hopeful. This Honey Bee set called “Winter Anemones” called to me when I saw this challenge. 

I pulled out my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors after embossing the image in gold ink on Altenew’s watercolor paper. After watercoloring the image, I die cut it with Hero Arts Rounded Rectangles. The Amethyst Allure cardstock from Papertrey Ink was a good match for the purple flowers.

I was too anxious about ruining the focal image to emboss the sentiment directly on the white card, so opted to emboss one of The Greetery’s “Sentiment Suite: Birthday” greetings  on a small banner, which worked well.

I’m entering both cards into the AAA Birthday Challenge where they’re celebrating their 2nd birthday as well as AAA Cards Challenge which is celebrating it’s 7th birthday.

Hope your week is off to a good start. We’re enjoying another wonderful sunny day, although quite a bit cooler than it’s been recently. It might be close to perfect.