Hey everyone!

My card today uses several stamps and Dies from The Greetery’s latest collection:  Winter Wanderer as well as a sentiment from The Ton’s Easy Expressions sentiment-building set.  I think the blooms, the macramé, and the perfect sentiment make this card so full of texture and interest and would bring comfort to any recipient!

For my background, I cut three of navy-colored macrame strips using the Macrame Diamonds die and adhered them to a navy card base using black foam strips to add subtle dimension.  I really have a thing for tone-on-tone dimension in my backgrounds because I feel like it gives a lot of interest and makes the card extra special.

Once the navy macramé panel was completed, I adhered it with more foam strips to a card base and moved on to making the flower and leaf cluster.

I used Gina K inks in Blue Denim and In the Navy to stamp the blue flowers.  These large layering flowers are bold, yet delicate looking – and who doesn’t love blue!  I stamped the yellow flower cluster using Catherine Pooler’s Lemoncello ink to add a little contrast.

For the greenery, I used the Hoop Wreath stamp.  Since this stamp isn’t a layering stamp and I wanted a bit of color variation, I used a technique called “thumping” to get two colors of green in the greenery.  To “thump” I first inked the entire stamp with Gina K Grass Green.  I then “thumped” a darker green ink pad – Gina K Fresh Asparagus – randomly on the edges of the stamp before stamping the image onto white cardstock.

There are really just two guidelines to follow when “thumping” with inkpads:

1. Always use your MISTI (or other stamp positioner) so that you can re-stamp if the coverage you want isn’t exactly right the first time, and
2. Always start with your lightest color and “thump” with the darker color – that way you don’t dirty-up your lighter ink pad with a darker color and risk mudding up the ink.

Once all my flowers and greenery were stamped, I used the coordinating dies to cut them out.

I arranged my flower cluster the way I wanted and glued the pieces to each other but held off on adhering them to the background until I had my sentiment ready.

For the sentiment, I used the “We’re In This Together” stamp from The Ton’s Easy Expressions set.  This set has a beautiful mix of fonts for each sentiment and features a unique layering option to build several sentiments with just two stamps!  It’s super versatile and the sentiments are just lovely.  I love sets like these because you get so many sentiments and the value is amazing!

I stamped the sentiment using Gina K Obsidian Amalgam ink and then used the Stampin’ Up!  Lovely Labels Pick-a-Punch to create a sweet little edge on my sentiment strip.  I did the same thing to a piece of vellum that I had cut just a tiny bit wider than my sentiment.

I mounted my sentiment strip on top of the vellum, being careful to leave a bit of that decorative edge on the vellum peeking out from under the sentiment strip.

I futzed around a bit trying to find the best layout for the flower cluster and the sentiment but once I decided the best placement, I glued all of my pieces in place.

In general, I don’t think any card is complete without a few sparkly gems so I added a few of them strategically on the card front.

I love this card!  I don’t typically do a darker background – so this was a bit out of my comfort zone – but I think it turned out so pretty!  I hope you like it as much as I do and that it inspires you to try something a little outside your comfort zone – I bet you come up with something beautiful!

All the best,