thinking of you card

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

Hi friends! Happy STAMPtember! I have a dainty project to share with you today featuring some of the newest products from the substantial Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember Release that went live earlier this week. (Check out that entire release HERE!) I feel like we can never have enough sympathy and thinking of you cards, and the delicate blooms in the new Charming Flower Stem die set were just begging to be used to create a somber “here for you” card. Let’s get started on the details!

*I have gathered links to all of the products used at the bottom of the post for your convenience, using affiliate links. Thank you for shopping with my links! I truly appreciate your support for my work!*

To begin my project, I die cut the new Charming Flower Stem twice from plain white cardstock. I then used OLO Markers to add delicate color to the blooms, selecting a very pale yellow and enhancing the highlights with my colorless blender marker. I used liquid adhesive to put the layered die cuts together after coloring, then used my sharp scissors to trim off the stems on one of the blooms to create a custom arrangement. It’s easy to customize these floral spray die cuts with a few snips of your scissors!

After I had finished coloring the florals, I die cut one of the spectacular new Lacy Point Frames dies. These nesting dies feature an intricate, feminine pattern around the edges that I thought worked beautifully with the delicate blooms! I die cut one of the frames from some deep navy blue cardstock, then mounted it in the center of a full-sized A2 panel of the same navy cardstock using thin foam adhesive squares. I love the subtle texture that these tone-on-tone die cuts create! I arranged the blooms in a trio on my card front, then added a glittering navy blue bow to the base of my bouquet, cut using Pinkfresh Studio Midnight Navy glitter cardstock and the new Pretty Bows 2.

For the greeting, I stamped the EZ Strips You Got This onto another panel of the same deep navy cardstock using Simon Says Stamp’s White Pigment Ink, then added White Satin Pearl embossing powder over the top to help enhance the contrast on those crisp stamped sentiments with that deep blue background. I used the new EZ Strips Banners die to cut out all of those sentiments in one fell swoop, leaving me a ton of greeting strips handy for a future project! What a time saver it would be to stamp these in a few neutral colors and die cut them to save for a rainy day! After tucking the sentiment amongst the ribbons of the bow with some more foam adhesive, I finally added some Opal Pawsitively Dazzling Gems to the corners of the lacy frame, adding one more touch of sparkle and shimmer to this somber card.

Well, that is all I have for this project! Stay tuned, because the super special STAMPtember collaborations begin shortly, and you won’t want to miss out on these limited edition, exclusive designs! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!

Hi friends! I am joining the blog hop to help introduce the new My Monthly Hero kit and Coordinating Add-Ons from my friends at Hero Arts! This kit features some beautiful floral images and gorgeous sentiments, perfect for so many different occasions. I found the sentiments especially poignant and incredibly useful for sympathy cards. I have a pair of cards to share with you today, so let’s get started with the details!

Here’s a peek at this month’s Classic Kit:

And the Premium Kit, which contains all of the elements of the Classic Kit plus some marvelous extra coordinating products:

Such beautiful, serene imagery included in this month’s kit, with lots of lovely sentimental messages that work for a huge variety of occasions!

My first card features elements from both the Classic Kit and the Premium Kit.

To start, I stamped the large bouquet of calla lilies, vase, and bow (I love the shape of that bow-such lovely movement and grace!) on watercolor paper using black pigment ink, then covered it in White Satin Pearl embossing powder to create a lovely pearlescent charcoal embossed image. I used my Sennelier watercolors to add some muted color to the calla lilies, foliage, vase, and bow, keeping the calla lilies “white” by painting around them with some pale aqua watercolor. Once I had finished watercoloring the images, I used the coordinating dies included in the kit to cut them out.

To accent the background while still keeping things simple, I lightly blended some Bermuda ink on an A2 Arctic card front, splattering the background with some sparkling silver watercolors. For the greeting, I heat embossed the “sending” from the Classic kit in silver on a piece of Adriatic cardstock, then die cut the embossed sentiment with the coordinating die as well as the “peace” fancy word die cut from the Premium Kit. I popped up the die cuts using foam adhesive, then added a few iridescent gray pearls for some sparkle and added textural interest.

My second card features the beautiful new Cosmos and Lavender Bundle. I wanted to create a sympathy card and thought that the simplicity of white-on-white would be perfect accented with some soft blues and grays. I stamped the cosmos bouquet from Cosmos and Lavender Bundle onto some white cardstock using my favorite ink for no-line coloring: Contour Ink. I used OLO markers to add some soft grayish blue to the flowers and some warm gray foliage. Once I had finished coloring, I stamped a couple of the greeting stamps using Wet Cement ink and die cut the images with the coordinating dies. I love that the sentiments also have coordinating Frame Cuts. It makes it so much easier to have sentiments with multiple lines when you don’t have to try to stamp them in a perfect line!

For the background, I used the individual floral stamps included in the Cosmos and Lavender Bundle with Contour Ink to create a very softly patterned background, starting with the largest stamp and working down to the smallest to create a cohesive pattern. I also die cut a white hexagonal frame using the Hexagon Infinity Dies, offsetting it to the left side of the card and snipping off the excess. I popped up the colored bouquet and sentiment die cuts using a double layer of foam adhesive to help them pop from the white background, finally adding some white gems for a touch of subtle sparkle.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! To celebrate this release, Hero Arts is giving away a $50 shopping spree. The winner will be selected from comments along the hop, so be sure to leave comments on each stop for maximum chances to win. Enter by Sunday, February 11th at 11:59pm PT, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

You can find the full hop list on the Hero Arts blog. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!