Day Six - Official We Love Dawn Bloghop with Papertrey Ink

There is just one more day after today to enter up your projects showing support for Dawn McVey who is doing fantastic following her transplant.  As far as I can tell, she doesn't know that we've created this surprise for her.  I'm pretty sure she is occupied with other things right now.  *Ü*  Friendly Flowers is another beautiful floral set designed by Dawn for Papertrey Ink. There are two sets of dies to go with this set if you want to have the coordinating dies; Friendly Flower Die which cuts the largest flower and Friendly Flower Extras to cut the other flowers and both set of leaves.  Not only do I dislike fussy cutting, but I also seem not to be able to do it very well so it's a good thing they make the dies.

I had a few more of Dawn's designs sitting on my desk to work with this week and this was one of them.  I also had Basic Bookmark #3, and It's The Thought which also has coordinating dies although I didn't use them here.

I started by die cutting a few of each size bloom from Stamper's Select White Cardstock and then used my negatives as placeholders I did my stamping.  I wanted to use a variety of pinks (Dawn's Favorites) so I grabbed several ink pads.  I ended up using Lovely Lady, Hibiscus Burst and Raspberry Fizz for the flowers with Ripe Avocado Ink for the leaves.  The flower centers were all stamped with Raspberry Fizz and then I added these faceted dimensional jewels that I had in my stash for the flower centers. They came in three different sizes and were a fun little pop to add to my blooms.  This won't mail very well in a regular A2 sized Envelope because of the thickness but I always have a good supply of padded mailers on hand so I am planning to use one of those.

I created a top folding card base made from Stampers Select White Cardstock, and die cut a stitched rectangle die from Hibiscus Burst Cardstock.  The bookmark was also die cut from Stampers Select White. I stamped the sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed with Antique Gold Embossing Powder, then attached that to the Hibiscus Burst background panel and then that to the White Card Base.  After that, I arranged all the flowers how I wanted and then picked them up with Press-N-Seal to keep the arrangement how I wanted it.  I picked the arrangement up and flipped it over to put Ranger Multi Medium Matte on the backside and then flipped it again and adhered it. Anything that was not firmly tucked in got another little squeeze of Multi Medium to secure it.

I hope you've been enjoying all of the cards that have been entered into the link up this week.  If you haven't seen all of the beautiful projects, you can find the post and the link up here.

Thanks so much for dropping by today!  I will have one more project for this week's hop featuring a sentiment from A Thrill of Hope Stamp Set which is my favorite for Christian themed Christmas Cards.  I hope you'll stop back by!

Papertrey Ink Anniversary Celebration - 2010

Today we are continuing our journey back through the first 10 years of Papertrey Ink with a look back at 2010.  That year brought several new stamp sets including one called "Year of Flowers" and featured the different flowers for each of the months of the year.  I have only one of the larger version, Lily of the Valley.  Lily of the Valley are special in my family. However, after seeing all the gorgeous projects that Nichole posted and seeing Keeway's watercolor, I know the Sweet Pea will be my next set.  I also really want the Daffodil, and the Rose and ....well - you know. Probably all of them eventually.  

I started by stamping the image in Versamark onto a piece of Canson Bristol Watercolor Paper and heat set it using Antique Gold Embossing Powder. I grabbed a few distress markers and my water brush and took it on a clip board to color in front of the TV.  I feel like I don't get to watch much TV but the clipboard gives me a strong flat surface to work on if I want to do something while I'm "watching" which should probably be more accurately described as listening.  Anyway, this is my absolute favorite way to watercolor.  While I have other mediums, I find this one to be easiest for what I do.  And I even prefer it over my Zigs.

I used a combination of Mowed Lawn and Pine Needles to color the leaves but for the white blooms I put down just the tiniest amount of Weathered Wood and pulled it out with my Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush Pen.  Once that was dry, I went all around the image with a small amount of Tumbled Glass and slightly more water and let it pool a bit here and there to give it a few hard edges in an otherwise soft blue "sky".

To create the card, I die cut the watercolor panel then die cut another larger panel from Aqua Mist Cardstock. I put a piece of fun foam under the watercolor panel to give it some dimension.  That was attached to a Card Base made from Stamper's Select White Cardstock.  Then I stamped the sentiment on a scrap piece of Aqua Mist, heat embossing it then cut it into a banner to attach to my card front.  The fun foam behind the main panel helps it to go through the mail without getting torn up. I added a few metallic aqua sequins as the final touch.

While I love Keeway's beautifully colored image, that wouldn't have suited my image well at all. Thanks again for stopping by to see my card and I hope you'll come back again.  Be sure to pop over to Papertrey Ink's Blog to see all of the projects for today!