Always Playing With Paper Challenge #65

They had a gorgeous inspiration image this week over at Always Playing With Paper.  I had hoped that a new stamp I ordered would arrive in time to use it, but its still in transit and I'm almost out of time to get this post up so I finally worked on it a bit yesterday morning after checking the status of that order.

I think it would surely be no surprise to anyone that I really love peonies. They have so many ruffled and gorgeous layers with hints of light and dark shades and highlights running through them.  They are indeed one of Nature's finest.

One of my grandmothers loved them and had several in her yard that she had shared with my mom at some point in time when I was in Elementary School. They have the most heavenly smell. I've noticed lately that they seem to come in many more colors than they used to and the ones in this photo are stunning in shape and color.  I don't think Peonies grow very well in Oklahoma as I have never seen any here. This bouquet makes me want to plant some for sure.  They are probably around somewhere, but you just don't see them.

I used the color in the bouquet as my starting inspiration for this card.  I didn't have a peony bouquet so I used a tulip bouquet from the Papertrey Ink Tulip Time Stamp and Die Set.  I also wanted to try to mimic the stack of books somewhat so I made the horizontal stripes using a My Favorite Things Striped Background Stamp with Versamark Ink and heat embossed them using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I cut that down to the band size I needed by using a Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die and repositioning the paper in the die for the 2nd pass.

I used the Mama Elephant "Scripty Hello" Die for my greeting and finished the card off by adding the faceted enamel dots to the upper right hand side of the card. Everything is attached to a 5.25 x 4 inch top folding card base.  The pink cardstock I used here is Strawberry Slush; it's a no longer available SU color.

Happy Easter Everyone!  Enjoy some family time today if you can.