Floral Mother's Day Card

The theme for a2zScrapbooking's April challenge is "Flower Power." It's been quite a while since I've entered one of their challenges, but I decided to have a go at this one. I don't have too many Hero Arts floral stamps, but I did purchase the "Color Layering Hibiscus" set some months ago, and figured I'd use that to make a Mother's Day card for my brother & sister-in-law to give to our mom.

I found this card by Sandy Hancock through Pinterest, and thought it looked like an interesting interactive card. I began by creating the panel of patterned paper for the card front. I didn't feel like taking a lot of time to dig through my--ahem--extensive patterned paper collection for one that would work with the hibiscus flowers. So I figured I'd create my own. I used one of the leaf images from "Color Layering Hibiscus" and Memento Pistachio ink to stamp all over a panel of white cardstock. When I finished, I decided I should have done it on a green cardstock, for a tone-on-tone look. But I wasn't about to start over, so I just used some Shabby Shutters Distress ink on a mini ink blending tool and inked the whole panel. I was careful to use a VERY light hand, to avoid the dreaded foam blotch marks! I honestly think it came out quite well. :)

For the hibiscus flowers themselves, I asked my mom what her 3 favorite colors are. She came back with red, yellow, & blue, or substitute green for blue. So I decided to make red & yellow hibiscus, since I have never seen them in blue. I used Memento Dandelion, Cantaloupe, Hero Arts Butter Bar, and Altenew Ruby Red (for the center) inks for the yellow flowers. For the red, I started with Hero Arts Pale Tomato, then added Memento Lady Bug & Altenew Ruby Red. I initially stamped the center for those with Hero Arts Red Royal ink, but it ended up blending in too much. So I just restamped over the centers with Hero Arts Raspberry Jam. For the leaves, I used Hero Arts Green Hills & Memento Cottage Ivy. Finally, I die cut them with the coordinating dies.

I assembled the card as per the instructions in the tutorial Sandy provided. They seemed difficult to follow at first, but when I was actually making the card while reading them, it wasn't too hard. I didn't have a suitable 2" circle punch like she used, so I used a 2" We R Memory Keepers "Nesting Circles" die instead to cut all the circles.

I didn't have suitable stamps for the greetings, so I found a greeting online for the card front. I created a blank, 2" square canvas in Photoshop, and used the elliptical shape tool to draw a circle. I ended up making the circle a little smaller than my canvas, just to make sure my greetings would show through the die cut windows on my card. I typed the greeting, as well as another one saying just "Happy Mother's Day," in the circles, making the letters green to complement my custom-stamped patterned paper. I printed just the greetings (not the background circles) on a piece of white cardstock that I'd cut to 3.5x5".

View of the card when it's open

I cut the greetings apart, and positioned them behind the window openings. It was not the easiest thing to get them adhered to the back flaps of the card, but I managed! After I adhered them, I glued my flowers & leaves on to the card front, slightly overlapping the circle opening. I didn't like how easy it was for the card to unfold the "wrong" way, so the whole thing opened. It took some doing, and some experimentation, but I finally was able to "close" it to a degree with 2 very thin strips of foam tape along part of the top & bottom of the base. I had also cut about a 1/4" piece from the top & bottom of the narrower greeting piece, so it would slide between the foam tape strips. It is still a little difficult to get it to open, but it does, and I'm happy with it! Hopefully, our mom will love it too.

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

613 Avenue Create #208: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)
A Blog Named Hero: "Put a Flower on It"