Springtime Gift Ensemble with Simon Says Stamp!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! I am popping in to share this sweet springy gift ensemble created using a bunch of goodies from Simon Says Stamp. I love a good floral layering stamp set, and the beautiful, painterly blooms in the Fresh Air Flowers set creates such lovely, unique flora that I just went crazy stamping a ton of blooms, leaving me with enough floral die cuts to create not just a card, but also a sweet coordinating gift bag! Let’s get started on the details for my projects.

To start my project, I used my MISTI to stamp the florals from Fresh Air Flowers with bunches of inks from Simon Says Stamp, including Pawsitively Saturated Inks in shades of Butter, Zest, Sherbet, Cantaloupe, Melon, Tidepool, Tropic and Ballet, as well as Princess Rainbow Splash Inks. I wanted to create some super delicate pastel blooms, but the Pawsitively Saturated inks are super vivid and concentrated, so I used an oldie-but-goodie trick for stretching your ink colors to create a larger color gradient: stamping off. I simply inked up my stamp as normal, then stamped the image off on a piece of scrap paper, then stamped it again on my good cardstock, creating a very pale version of the same color!

The first layer of stamped-off color was very pale, so I used my MISTI to stamp the first layer of each image at 2-3 times, building up that super pale pastel so that it had a little more intensity while still staying significantly lighter than the full-strength version. I used the full-strength version on my second layer of each flower, then moved on to the next darkest color in the ink family for my darkest layer. All of the flowers, except the large peach daisy, were stamped with only two shades of ink! The peach daisy had four layers, so I used all three colors in Ink Trio 9.

After stamping and die cutting all of my stamped flowers from Fresh Air Flowers, I began assembling the floral arrangement on the card front so that I knew how many flowers I had left to use on the gift bag. I wanted to create a super springy “flower basket,” so I trimmed down a panel of white cardstock and ran it through my die cutting machine using the Woven Embossing Folder. I adhered this embossed panel in the center of my A2 card front using strong double sided tape.

I find that “framing” my focal point always adds such classy interest to the my floral arrangements, so I die cut a white A2 Thin Frame and popped it up on my woven card front using 3D Foam Strips, which made it super easy to add this delicate frame to my card front! I arranged my pastel flower garden on the card front, adhering all of the elements with foam squares. For the greeting, I die cut a white Bestie die and adhered it along the bottom of the frame using tiny pieces of foam tape. I also created a custom embossed sentiment using a greeting from Fresh Air Flowers, stamping it first with Cantaloupe ink, then again with embossing ink, and heat embossing with pearlescent embossing powder. I popped up the greeting die cut with a double layer of foam tape, then added a few iridescent peach gems for sparkle!

For the coordinating gift bag, I die cut the Gift Bag Die twice from white cardstock, (love that it only takes one sheet of cardstock to create this adorable gift bag!) then used my T-square to measure the large front panel and cut a piece of cardstock down to the same size. I nestled this piece into the coordinating spot on the Gift Bag Die, then ran the panel through my die cut machine in order to create the scalloped top edge. I finally ran this extra panel through my die cut machine with the Woven Embossing Folder to create that textured background, then assembled the bag using some super sticky double sided tape.

After assembling my gift bag, I added the leftover peach floral die cuts with some foam adhesive. I created another sentiment (perfect for a gift bag!) using Cantaloupe ink and white pearl embossing powder and tucked it amongst the flowers, finally embellishing the bag with a white faux silk bow and some more peach gems!

Well, that’s all for my projects today! One of my favorite parts about stamping is being able to create coordinating card and gift ensembles… I just love it when everything matches! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!