Love you so much

Good morning! Happy Monday! I hope everybody had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend. My hubby had to work most of the weekend, so I’ve been promised a “do-over” next weekend. We shall see. 😉

So if you have followed my blog or on instagram for very long, you will have noticed that I have a slight obsession with peonies. All flowers, really, but peonies in particular. I will never have enough peony stamps. So when Wplus9 came out with their new Modern Peonies set, my jaw immediately dropped, and I waited impatiently for it to arrive. I will admit, though, that after I received them, I was a little intimidated by just how intricate they were. Hopefully I’ve done them justice. I started by heat embossing them with silver detail embossing powder onto some Canson Montval watercolor paper, then die cutting them with their coordinating dies. I have been experimenting with my other watercoloring mediums lately, but wanted to start out with my Zig markers for a bit of shading “practice” such as it is.

I chose a lavender and coral color scheme, because as I looked through my Instagram feed one evening, I realized that literally every card that I make is primarily pink. So, I’ve made a vow to branch out into other combinations. There’s just something about pink flowers, though, that makes my little heart go pitter-patter.

Anyway, After watercoloring the blooms with my Zig markers and a damp paintbrush, I die cut one of Wplus9’s Lattice Frame die from some shimmery pewter card stock from my stash. (Have you guys seen the wonderful new mini stacks from DCWV that you can find at the big box stores? They have shimmer and glitz papers in a huuuuge array of colors. I basically bought them all. They’re great for die cuts and die cut sentiments, because they cut like butter!) I arranged my peony bouquet, picked it up with Press ‘n Seal, then adhered it  to the front of my lattice die cut. I added some dimensional adhesive to the back of the lattice die cut, then laid it down on some dark coral-ish red card stock, a perfect complement to the coral flowers.

For my greeting, I chose to use the beautiful “love” stamp and cut set from Hero Arts. I die cut the “love” die from dark purple card stock, then heat embossed the “so very much” from the included stamp set onto a thin strip of vellum that I flagged at the end. I tucked it under one of the flowers, then scattered a few cherry red sequins around, just to add a bit more sparkle. 🙂 I’m planning on giving this to my mom with her bag of sugar free Russell Stover goodies and a mug that says “Keep Calm and Call Mom,” which is pretty much my mantra since I had kids haha!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s day, and for those who are mothers only in their hearts and in their dreams, I send out a special hug. I’ve been there. Mother’s Day can be rough.

Wishing you all a fabulous week. 🙂