Inspiration: Freshly Made Sketch #453 + Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (no stamps allowed)
This card came together slowly, but I am happy with the end result. It started with me playing with the Poinsettia dies for fun and assembling a couple of flowers. I recently watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on how to put together flowers, in which they were using a large stylus on a foam mat to shape the petals. I later remembered I still have my Empressor stylus from EK Success, which I believe was purchased from Stampin' Up! when they carried years ago (I am talking back when they had metal stencils). I also have an old piercing mat, so I pulled both of those out and played with my die-cut poinsettia to see what results I would achieve. The verdict is that the Empressor works really well.
It's funny, I have been doing paper crafts for close to 20 years now so as you can imagine, I have accumulated quite a collection of crafting nicknacks over the years. I've tried to purge a bit over the years, but I find that things are cyclical and that the old tip that goes "if you have not used something this year, you should get rid of it" is not necessarily true when it comes to crafting, as that will probably lead to you rebuying another version of the same thing you gave away, but at full price! This is a good example of that. It's been years since I last used the Empressor, but now that I've found this new use for it, I expect it will come out more.
Once my flowers were finished, I started looking at this week's challenges to see if anything caught my eye to use the poinsettia on a project. I had in the back of my mind the idea of using the Wonder of the Season Specialty Designer Series Paper and the Plush Poinsettia Specialty paper, and when I was the Freshly Made sketch, I saw an opportunity to use both.
I matted the velvet-patterned paper with a gold sheet from the Brushed Metallic cardstock pack for my background. I then die-cut a large circle out of a gold-foil sheet of Wonder of the Season paper. The Dear Mrs. Claus heading caught my eye and when I started reading what the note was about, I saw that it was a question about how to keep poinsettia from wilting. Perfect text, so I placed my circle to make sure that text would appear on the left side.
Once I layered the circle, I felt the card was a little bland, so I masked the bottom and used a sponge dauber to ink the top in Mossy Meadow ink. I then used a blending pen to add ink to the Dear Mrs. Claus banner and the whole thing instantly became more interesting. I looked through my ribbon for something that could decorate my panel and I picked the Old Olive ribbon from the All the Trimmings ribbon combo pack. I liked that the edges are gold, which ties in with the paper.
The center of the poinsettia was decorated with a Beaded Pearl (love those - gorgeous!) and I added Wonderful Gems to the holly berry and the top of the circle. A matching envelope was made out of the Specialty paper.
Stampin' Up! Supplies
Cardstock: Mellow Moss, Brushed Metallic Cardstock
Specialty Designer Series Paper: Wonder of the Season, Plush Poinsettia
Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Mellow Moss, Sahara Sand
Accessories: Poinsettia Dies, Stitched So Sweetly Dies, Beaded Pearls,
Wonderful Gems, Sponge Daubers, Stylus, All the Trimmings Ribbon Combo Pack
Beautiful card! So much interest and dimension! And it has such a warm and cosy feel to it. Thanks so much for joining us at Freshly Made Sketches.
Posted by: Karren Johnson | September 22, 2020 at 00:31
Gorgeous poinsettia. I love the patterns you used! Thank you for playing along at Freshly Made Sketches with my sketch this week!
Posted by: Judy Rozema | September 22, 2020 at 06:34