Happy Mother's Day Bouquet

Laura Sterckx, one of the guest instructors for Online Card Classes' "Stretch Your Dies" class, had a lesson on Day 5 on "Debossed Frame Stamping." I made this card, inspired by hers.

I first stamped the hedgehog from Penny Black's "Hugs" stamp set onto a piece of 110 lb. white cardstock, using Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink. Then I used a circle die to trace a circle around him. I placed 3 of the floral dies from WPlus9's "Spring Blooms" set on the circle, and ran it through my die cutting machine. Instead of die cutting, though, I used the embossing "sandwich" for my machine, to impress (or deboss) the dies into the cardstock. I repeated this process until the circle was pretty well full, making sure to erase my guideline before stamping. Then I stamped the flowers from the coordinating WPlus9 stamp set in the centers of the debossed areas. I filled in with some greenery & buds from the same stamp set, as well as some little leaves from Paper Smooches' "Botanicals 2" stamp set. For the flowers & leaves I used Memento dye inks in Cantaloupe, Desert Sand, Danube Blue, Dandelion, Bamboo Leaves, Rich Cocoa, and Grape Jelly.

After I'd finished stamping the images, I colored the little hedgehog in with colored pencils. Since it was such a small image, I didn't use Gamsol to blend this time. I then scanned the card front panel into my computer. I opened it and the "Mother's Day Sentiments" from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps in Photoshop, and (digitally) copied one of the greetings onto my card front. Finally, I printed the greeting directly onto the panel. All that was left was to glue a piece of fun foam, cut slightly smaller than the panel, to the back, and glue that to an A2-size cream card base.