Work It Wednesday!

Good morning! I have found a new challenge… well, it’s new to me. Work It Wednesday with Simon Says Stamp! This month’s challenge is April Showers Bring May Flowers. As I recently purchased my first floral set from Simon Says Stamp, I thought this challenge would be appropriate. The Spring Flowers set that was released a few months ago caught my eye immediately. I have lots of flower stamps, but I found myself sorely lacking in crocuses (I think that’s what those flowers are… that’s what I’m calling them, anyway!). I also was unable to resist one of those gorgeous new lacy backgrounds. Let’s get started!

I have a love affair with coloring in general. Watercolors, Zig markers, colored pencils… I find that watercoloring garners most of my attention, simply because you can get quite a bit of wow factor without a massive time investment. I absolutely adore the depth and smoothness of colored pencils, but it does take quite a bit of time to get a beautifully smooth blend. For these realistic-looking flowers, only the most detailed blending would suffice. I started by stamping the blooms and foliage from More Spring Flowers using the Barely Beige ink from Simon Says Stamp. It’s perfect for no-line coloring. I colored all of the images using Prismacolor pencils and Prismacolor blender pencil, then fussy cut them.

For the background, I used the beautiful Emma background stamp, stamped and heat embossed using Silver Pearl embossing powder. I then used Winter Wisteria and Royal Velvet ink (both from Papertrey Ink) to blend over the top of the beautiful embossed background. It just brings out that stunning detail so beautifully. After I had die cut my Simon Says Stamp “congratulations” die from Royal Velvet card stock from Papertrey Ink, I arranged my florals and die cut sentiment on the front of my card, then used my favorite Press ‘n Seal technique to pick them up so that it kept it’s shape while I added my adhesive. I adhered my bouquet with dimensional adhesive, then added my die cut with some Multi Matte Medium. After adhering my sentiment, I added some Glossy Accents to the sentiment die cut, in addition to a few pretty color coordinated sequins. I added some strips of coordinating Royal Velvet card stock to the top and bottom of the background panel before adhering it to my A2 card base.

Well, that’s all for me! I’m going to have to put this challenge in my back pocket for when I’m feeling creative but have no particular project in mind. How fun, right? Hope you’re having a marvelous week, friends!