Creating an inventory of my crafting supplies has multiple benefits. I know what I have, and I know where it is. But in addition, I “find” things I’ve forgotten about. This beautiful Floral Focus from My Favorite Things is one of them. I embossed it in white on Altenew watercolor paper and colored it with my Zig Watercolor markers. Every time I get out the watercolors I remember how much I enjoy it. I need to do it more often. 

When I finished the watercolors, I fussy cut the right side of the design and added it to this lovely purple/red cardstock which I can’t identify. The sentiment from Pinkfresh Studio’s Perfect Sentiments was hot foiled in gold. I added a few clear “rain drops” and called it done.

I’m entering this in the Four Seasons Challenge: Spring and the Just Add Ink Challenge. Both challenges have a beautiful inspiration board with some lovely purple florals, although my purple is a different hue. Hope it doesn’t matter.

The Greetery’s Garden Goodness suite of products has been sitting in my box of “need to use” products for nearly a year. I had tried to use it as soon as it arrived, but discovered I had two of one of the stencils and was missing one. Betsy, in typical customer service excellence, mailed me the stencil I didn’t have. Although the transaction really didn’t take very long, I was into something else, and never got back to it. Finally this week, I put it to use.

The card that I ended up with was definitely NOT the card I had in mind when I started but I do like it quite a bit. I first stenciled the whole panel with a variety of Pinkfresh Studio inks. The I used the die cut on a piece of black cardstock and used the negative to lay over the stenciled piece.

I had a slight problem with the overlay and when I tried to correct it I made a mess of one side of the piece. The solution was to cut the piece down. After adhering it to an orange card base, I added a narrow strip of black cardstock to the edge.

The sentiment, from Altenew’s Sentiment Strips II, was already embossed on black cardstock which I found easily since I had just reorganized how I keep pre-stamped or foiled sentiments. Little by little, I’m reorganizing and/or inventorying most of my supplies.

I’m sending this off to the Stencil Fun Challenge where the option is Flowers and to Addicted to Stamps and More where the challenge is Stencils or Die Cuts.

Both Seize the Birthday Challenge and AAA Birthday Challenge are calling for balloons. I needed two birthday cards for kids this month so I pulled out a die set for one, and a favorite stamp set for the other.

For the first card I die cut some brightly colored balloons with one of the dies from Simon Says Balloons, all cut from scraps.

Once I knew where I wanted the balloons, I stamped some strings from Papertrey Ink Birthday Balloons and Birthday Strings and then attached the balloons. Before adding them to the card front I adhered a piece of striped paper with many of the same colors in the balloons. I think this might be from a My Favorite Things paper pad, but it was filed away under stripes in my 6X6 patterned paper box.

It’s interesting that the orange balloon appears a bit more red in the photo than IRL. If I’d thought of that possibility I wouldn’t have put them next to one another.

I love the critters on the next card, and added a heart-shaped balloon for the penguin to hold.

All the critters were colored with Copic markers as well as the sentiment where I used two shades of blue for an ombre effect. I also added two balloons to the front of the envelope.

The final touch was adding some Nuvo Crystal glaze to the balloon for some dimension and shine.

One of my most recent purchases was the Gina K Curved Floral stencil and die set. I set out to see how different combinations might work. I started with light colors, using Pinkfresh Studio inks for all the stenciling. For the first two cards, I stenciled first and then used the outline die cut to place over the stenciling.

For the light colored stencil, I chose a white die cut and placed the curved floral on a scalloped oval I found at Dick Blick’s several years ago.

The sentiment is also from Gina K’s Wreath Builder set. I used that sentiment on the second card as well, choosing brighter colors and a black die cut.

The last card doesn’t use stenciling at all. I die cut the solid die cut from a piece of patterned paper—Altenew’s Gel Printing, and used some light shading with a small brush to highlight a few spots in the centers of the flowers. I found a dark gray panel using the Altenew Deck Planks 3-D embossing folder in my box of precut panels, and was surprised at how much I liked it. Definitely a different look.

The sentiment here was one I had foiled earlier from Spellbinder’s Everyday Sentiments II, and was die cut with a banner die from The Greetery.

I’m adding my brightly colored florals to the Paper Players Challenge. It’s a fun Tic Tac Toe challenge and I chose bright colors, die cut, and birthday running diagonally from left to right. I’m also adding one of the cards to Seize the Birthday Challenge—no topping, but I do expect to be back with one for the balloon topping soon.

It’s been hard to find time to get back to crafting, but I finally made one of the last two cards from the February Create and Connect event. It’s an interactive slider card, and the dies make creating it so easy. The class event used a new Washi tape suite called Fruitalicious, but I opted to use a floral Washi tape suite, In the Meadow, that I already owned. The pink flowers were inspired by the Just Us Girls Moodboard this week. I haven’t had a chance to play along since February when I was Guest Designer for a month, and I’ve missed playing along with their fun challenges. 

Here’s the card (almost) flat. It does easily fit into an A2 envelope.

When you pull the tab, a second message emerges from the top, and another set of florals is revealed behind.

Here’s the message that pulls up:

I made this card for one of my best friends, and knew she’d love the pretty florals. The sentiments are also from Pinkfresh Studio: Friendship Blooms, and Beyond Happy.

I’m also sending this off to Seize the Birthday: Anything Goes. This is another challenge I’ve missed playing along with. I keep forgetting that you always have the option to use any kind of birthday card!