Thanks Poppy

The challenge this past week at Our Daily Bread Designs has been a pastel color challenge. They posted this palette on their blog, with the idea being to use at least 3 of the colors as the focal point of your card:

Though I prefer to use ODBD stamps for their challenges, I do not have many, and wasn't sure how I could work what I do have into a pastel color palette. But I have the "Poppy Single" stamp and its coordinating die, so I decided to see if they can be pink. (I've most often seen red ones.) So I did an online search for "pink poppy," and found out that poppies do indeed come in pink! Problem solved!

The inspiration for my design came from one of the cards by Linda Brandyberry in this blog post. She used an embossed frame, with an inlaid center panel. Because I was using the "Poppy" stamp, I decided to use my Cuttlebug "Poppy" embossing folder for the frame. First I die cut the center panel from a piece of white cardstock using one of the "Stitched Rectangles" dies by Simon Says Stamp. Then I ran the remaining frame through my Spellbinders Grand Calibur machine with the embossing folder. I was kind of concerned at first that the pattern would be too big for the frame, but I think it ended up working perfectly!

For the poppy, I stamped it on white cardstock using Hero Arts Soft Yellow ink. I wanted a light color, so the lines would not really show when I colored it. As it turned out, that color was almost too light, since I could barely see where to color! But I was able to manage. I used colored pencils to color it in, blending them with Gamsol on a paper stump, Finally, I cut it out with the coordinating die.

Initially I was going to leave the inner panel I'd die cut white, but when I put the poppy up against that, I felt it was just not enough contrast. So I blended some Tumbled Glass Distress ink over the panel instead. This also brought in a third color from the inspiration palette. After gluing down the poppy, I stamped the greeting from this Simon Says Stamp set using Hero Arts Charcoal mid-tone shadow ink. I wanted a darker ink to make the greeting stand out, but not something as stark as black.

I finished the card by adhering the frame to the front of an A2-size card base, then adhering the center panel in place. I will be sending this to Operation Write Home.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Virginia's View Challenge #13: "Embossing"
Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday challenge: "Spring"
Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Special Lady/Girly"