Easter Wishes

With Spring right around the corner, it's hard not to think of all the blooms that will be popping up soon.  My mother has loads of flowers in her garden from the earliest Crocuses to Tulips to Daffodils, Iris and more.  I can't even remember all the flowers in her garden.

For this card, I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 inch panel of Canson Bristol 96# Watercolor Paper and stamped the Tulip image from the Clearly Besotted Friends Forever Stamp Set. I wanted the images to be primarily on the left hand side of the panel so I stamped one image higher up and then to the lower right of that first stamped image.  The image contains two (2) Tulips so I stamped it twice then heat set it using Simon Says Stamp's new Antique Gold Embossing Powder. 

To color the images I used a water brush with Tim Holtz Distress Markers in Seedless Preserves and Mowed Lawn.  I wasn't using much water so it took only a couple of minutes for the layers to dry so I could add more layers in.  I wanted the leaves to be in a "Spring" green so I left them with only one layer of color. Seedless Preserves is one of my two favorite Distress Ink colors, the other being Worn Lipstick (a.k.a. Pink and Purple).  I love it because while it seems to be an ordinary purple when you put it down, the minute you add a single drop of water it changes and has some pink to it also.  I call it "my little extrovert".  It reminds me of myself.  

I have small pile of cardstock pieces to the right hand side of my die cutting machine and the piece of SU! Rich Razzleberry Cardstock was in that pile.  I die cut it using the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles in the largest size and then used the 2nd largest to die cut my watercolor paper and the scrap of Gold Foil Cardstock.  Like I have done previously,  I just realigned the 4th side of my cardstock in the die to cut that 4th side with the matching stitch-work to get the tall piece.  

The decorative border is a Sizzix Border Die from a set of 4.  I assembled everything to a top folding A2 sized note card.  I trimmed about 1/4 inch off the top and bottom to leave only a very narrow white border all the way around.  

Next I die cut the Simon Says Stamp Exclusive "Easter" Die from another piece of Gold Foil Cardstock.  Using the Simon Says Stamp Decorative Ornaments Stamp Set, I stamped and heat embossed the "Love • Peace • Joy" beneath the Easter die cut.  I really wanted it to say "Easter Wishes", but I couldn't find that in any of my stamp sets so I thought this was pretty good for my 2nd choice. I stamped two of the smallest butterflies from the SU! Papillion Potpourri Set in Versamark, heat set them in the same SSS Antique Gold and used the coordinating punch to cut them out.  I always fold up the wings up and adhere down the center of the bodies using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for this week is "Take a Leap" into the unknown.  I lept into using 3 different stamp sets from occasions that were different than my theme of Easter; I lept into a new die although the outcome wasn't really unknown; and I lept into using a new stamp for my watercolor panel.  I've used the Gladiolus image before, but not the Tulips. I like the rich, royal purples in this card and I hope you enjoy it also. I am hoping to leap into a few other new things or techniques before the week is out.  Thanks so much for stopping by today!