"COUNTRY FLOWERS"

In the previous blog post, I mentioned Stampin' Up!'s Country Woods Suite Collection and that it includes the "Country Birdhouse" bundle.  Well . . . it also includes another gorgeous bundle - "Country Flowers".  I love, love, love the colors in the card that I'm sharing today, which features some of the dies and images from "Country Flowers".  Speaking of dies . . . I seem to be making a habit of die-cutting a handful of shapes from white cardstock and stamping them after they've been cut.  Sometimes I just do my best to line up a stamp with a die-cut shape, and then there are times when I go to a teensy extra step.

The photo above shows the scrap of white cardstock that I used to cut the floral images for my card. This scrap is now kept in the stamp case (along with the dies) to be used again and again as a template for accurately stamping the coordinating images.  I should mention that I always use a stamp positioning tool for this method in case I need to stamp the images more than once. The photo above shows the template on the tool.  On the acrylic part of the tool (which you can't see in the photo), I have used the template to line up the respective stamps.  

The die-cut shapes are placed back (on the template) into the spaces where they were cut. The stamps are inked and then stamped onto the die-cut shapes as you can see in the above photo.  When removed from the template, the die-cut and perfectly stamped shapes (see photo below) are ready to be colored. 

I should use this method all the time because it always feels like a win to have a perfect border around die-cut shapes.  Don't they look great?  Can you guess what makes them even better?  That's right . . . color!  Below is a photo of the finished card:

The images were colored with alcohol markers.  I played around with mixing some colors to get the dirty/aged texture on the gray and green pots, which I think gave them some much needed depth.  For the stool, I adhered a scrap of "Country Woods" designer paper to a piece of cardstock prior to die-cutting it, and that turned out to be good thing because the stool was nice and sturdy--and the embossed texture of the card behind it didn't get pushed through the DSP when all the layers were assembled.  The floor of the card is also from the "Country Woods" designer paper collection.  Now . . . those deeply embossed dots?  They were created with the brand new "Dotted Circle" 3D embossing folder.  

The Adhesive-Backed Shiny Sequins were a perfect finishing touch for this card.  My cardstock colors are Lemon Lolly and Bubble Bath.

I'm really excited about this fantastic suite of products!  My plan is to prepare plenty of stamped and die-cut images that I can work on coloring whenever and wherever.  Then . . . all of the time-consuming elements will be complete and ready to land on some cards.

This suite of products is probably going to end up on your wishlist. :-)

Have a stampin' good day!