Floral Thank You

This is the first of two cards I’ll be posting today. (Assuming I get the other one made..!) It’s a response to two challenges. Inspired by All the Little Things provided the inspiration image that you can see below, and I decided to also make this card another contribution to Less is More‘s coloured card base challenge. Finally I’m entering it to A Bit More Time To Craft‘s anything goes challenge.

I started by considering the above image with regards to the supplies and equipment I had available to me. I decided I would do a bit of stamping, using the flower stamps from my Altenew Wild Hibiscus set. I started by stamping each of the flowers on to some scraps of white paper, using a variety of colours as inspired by the given image. I did one in orange, two purple, and three in a couple of shades of pink.

Next I fussy cut each of the flowers and started playing around with an arrangement on the card base. I decided I wanted a kraft backing for my card, so I cut a panel of that to use.

After much playing around, repositioning, and general frustration(!) I decided I would actually only use three of the flowers I’d stamped. I went for one of each colour – pink, purple and orange. I chose to arrange them together and add a couple of stems so that they weren’t just floating on the card.

I stamped the stems directly onto the kraft base first with black ink. (My newly acquired Memento ink – I’m in love already! It’s so much better than my generic black ink I was using before.) I then stamped on top of it with the green. The green looks a bit muted on the kraft but I think it works well. And the smudginess of the green being slightly unaligned (is that a word?) is somewhat reminiscent of the water-colour look in the inspiration image. With the stems stamped I adhered the flowers in place.

For a sentiment I went with “Thank You” from my Avery Elle Petal Panel. I don’t often make thank you cards so it seemed like it would be a nice change. The strong, simple font of these stamps seemed like a good choice to go with this CAS card. The sentiment was of course stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I felt like there was still something missing from the card, though I was reluctant to add much because I like the CAS look. I decided I needed a line of some sort, so I drew on a double line of green just below the sentiment and along as if it was going behind the flowers. Then I decided I didn’t like that at all. After a look through my crafting supplies I discovered the narrow green ribbon, and stuck that over the lines I had drawn on. I had to use my craft knife to slightly peel back and unstick the bottom of the orange flower to get the ribbon underneath it. I think it was worth it though, because it really seemed to give the card the finishing touch it needed.

I’m pretty happy with how this card turned out, especially given the lack of planning. (I seem to be doing less and less planning with my cards lately!) I think it works well for the challenges involved, and is a striking card that I would be happy to send out. Or sell. I’m considering opening an Etsy store to sell some of my cards, as I make more than I could ever use! Does that seem like a good idea? Anyone have any thoughts, advice, experience? Would anyone be interested in buying any of my cards?

Love,

Lady Joyful