Floral Hugs

I created this card for both the current Fusion challenge & the Essentials by Ellen February Pin-Sights challenge. I followed the sketch for the Fusion challenge, with my color inspiration coming from the Pin-Sights mood board.

I began by cutting a piece of light pool-colored cardstock to 4.25x5.5". I embossed it with the "Brick" embossing folder from Taylored Expressions. Since I really struggle with leaving a lot of "white space" on my projects, this gave some interest to the background without adding a lot of "stuff."

To create my flowers, I stamped 2 of the images from the Essentials by Ellen "Bold Blooms" set onto white cardstock. For the solid flower, I used Hero Arts Pool ink, and Versamark for the scribbly flower. I heat embossed the larger flower with Ranger Silver embossing powder. After drying the solid flower with my heat tool, I added the center stamp and heat embossed that with silver as well. Finally, I die cut both with the coordinating dies. I inked the scribbly flower with Tumbled Glass Distress ink, and also inked the edges of the solid flower to help camouflage the white border and make it blend in more.

For the greeting panel, I die cut a piece of white cardstock with one of the "Large Cross Stitched Rectangle" dies from Lawn Fawn. I laid my flowers where I wanted them to overlap the panel, and lightly traced around them with a pencil. That helped me position my greeting, from the Essentials by Ellen "All Inside" stamp set. I stamped that in Versamark, and heat embossed it with the same silver powder I'd used on the flowers. Then I took a pool-colored Tombow marker, colored the bottom part of each letter, and used the Tombow blender marker to fade the color up in the letters to almost white.

I adhered my greeting panel to the background, and glued my flowers in place with Perfect Paper Adhesive. I felt the panel was a little bottom-heavy, so I decided to add some gems. I colored clear gemstones with Adirondack alcohol ink in the color Stream. I daubed up the extra ink with a paper towel, let them dry for several seconds, then glued them to my card with Ranger Multi Medium Matte. Finally, I adhered my card front to a white A2 card base.

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

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday challenge "Anything Goes"
613 Avenue Create #194: "Anything Goes"