BIRTHDAY CARD FOR MOTHER

 

My mother celebrated a birthday about two weeks ago, and it's taken me this long to share the card that I made for her.  I used my Cricut Maker 3 for all of the detailed cuts, and the pretty plaid texture was created with Stampin' Up!'s Forever Plaid embossing folder.  It's a beautiful plaid!  

I think the flowers are bluebells, and aren't they just so pretty?  This was a quick and simple card to make--and it's a little one--but I love its sweet design.  It's just so precious.

While transferring all of the cut pieces from my countertop to my desk, I lost one of the tiny buds.  Ugh!  I searched and searched, but it was nowhere to be found.  I decided to use colored gems for the buds and, quite honestly, they turned out to be a much better choice and added a perfect amount of sparkle and shimmer.

And what does every cardmaker want?  A card that folds flat for mailing, and this one did!

Have a beautiful day!!! 

"CONEFLOWER CELEBRATIONS"

 

Coneflower Celebrations . . . what a gorgeous product bundle from Stampin' Up!  None of the photos that I'm sharing in this post do justice to the colors, texture, dimension, and beauty of this project.  Let's start with a photo of the whole card:

My cardstock colors are Soft Sea Foam, Early Espresso, Garden Green, and Azure Afternoon. The embossed white layer features the Forever Plaid 3D embossing folder.  I'm so happy to have this embossing folder and wish my photos showed just how pretty it really is.  The designer paper is from a retired 6x6 collection, and the light blue gems are from a card kit--most likely a previous Paper Pumpkin kit.  

Alcohol markers were used to color the die-cut butterfly, and I also used an alcohol marker to color the Rhinestone Jewels that I placed on the flower center.  The butterfly and the center of the coneflower were brushed with Wink of Stella.  It's hard to tell from the photos, but blending brushes were used to deepen the color of the die-cut vein detail on the leaves, the top portion of the flower petals, and the edges of the flower center.   

The dies in this bundle seem to be very well thought out.  Just look at the detail on the flower center!  I used the four dies to cut my leaves, but the stamp set also includes leaf images that coordinate with the dies so they could have even more detail and depth--and either (stamps or dies) could be used one without the other.  Something else that I love about this bundle is that one (maybe two) coneflowers on a card would be just about all that is really needed to complete a gorgeous card for someone special.  There are times when I don't feel very creative and/or just don't have time to play around with ideas that I might end up not liking.  This gorgeous coneflower could take a project from start to finish in no time!  

In closing, here's the finished card one more time . . .