Morning Glories for Mom

The deadline for Mother's Day cards to be at Operation Write Home is March 31. That gives them time to get them sent out, so our heroes overseas can get them to their moms by Mother's Day. Cards that don't specifically say "Mother's Day" though, have a longer shelf life, since they can be sent anytime. So, while I am planning to make some Mother's Day cards, I started with just a general one.

I used OWH's Sketch #249 for my design:

I must admit, the small banners along the left side were the hardest to do. Because I wanted to use patterned paper, not only did I need small patterns, I had to hand-cut each 5/8" square banner! Thankfully I was able to find papers with small patterns in my scrap stash, 4 each of green and blue tones.

For the focal panel, I chose the "Morning Glory" and "Mother's Day Sentiments" digital stamps by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I created a 2x3" digital canvas in Photoshop, and sized the image & greeting to fit. After printing them onto a piece of white cardstock, I colored the morning glories with colored pencils, using Gamsol on a paper stump to blend the colors.

I used one of the papers in graphic45's "Botanical Tea" 6x6" patterned paper pad for the background panel. I felt the flowers in the paper coordinated well with the morning glories. After cutting the banners, I inked around the edges of the green ones with Peeled Paint, and the blue ones with Faded Jeans Distress inks, just to set them off from the background better. I matted the background with a piece of light teal cardstock, and adhered that to a piece of dark green cardstock cut to 4.25x5.5". I used the same green to mat the focal panel. Finally, for the green strip and square, I used another piece from my scraps, that was actually the flip side of one of the banner papers. I punched a heart in that paper, and punched around that with a 1" square punch.

To finish assembling the card, I determined how far from the left side to place the banners, then arranged & glued them in place. I glued the green patterned paper strip next to them, and adhered the focal panel in place. Finally, I glued down the heart-punched square, and adhered the finished card front to an A2-size card base. As an added touch, I applied tiny drops of Glossy Accents to the flowers & leaves in the morning glories, to simulate dew drops.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Operation Write Home's Sketch #249
Simon Says Stamp's Monday "No Rules"
Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes"
Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday: "Spring"