Arianna Blooms Bouquet

Well, I created this card with no particular purpose in mind. Get well. Happy Birthday. Good luck. Happy retirement. Teacher appreciation. I think it would work well for all of these card friendly events. This card turned out looking particularly joyful. I combined the dominant colours from the Arianna Blooms Paper Collection by Heartfelt Creations and I love the resulting visual happiness!!

When I 'finished' my card, I asked one of my daughters what it was missing, and she said, "Sparkle, Mom." Give the girl a banana for nailing it! She is one smart cookie! I haven't used glitter in 2 1/2 years, and I couldn't initially remember how to apply it enmasse. I'm trying to use up all my different forms of adhesive, because I'm not sure how much longer they will last, but it feels like my studio has been in stasis for the last long while, just waiting to be woken up. Long story short, I dug out my 1/4" Scor-Tape and stuck it over the pierced border and dumped glitter liberally. I really like that the piercing shows through the glitter.

And now I feel like I'm showing you my underwear drawer or taking you on a backstage tour of a theatrical production. The image on this card is 3/4" thick. The dimension is totally worth the box this would need to be delivered in!!! Some of the dimensional leaves and bud clusters have small pop dots on the outer edge, but the base of the leaf or stem is adhered directly to the paper. The top most blossom was distressed to create height and adhered directly to the blooms below it with no pop dot.

I was thrilled to discover that my quickie glue pen still worked!! I applied the glue to the edges of each blossom and again, dumped glitter liberally over anything that was slightly sticky.

Now, a secret to all my frugal friends, which might be an old secret to some; For each nestability die you own, you actually have 3 sizes of dies. Trace around the outside or inside edge of the die and cut by hand! Ta-Dah! For this image I traced around the inside edge of the largest classic oval die, skipping over the image where it was larger than the die. Then, I cut the image by hand and I used an exacto knife to cut the fiddly bits where the leaves and oval overlap. To get a nice, smooth edge, I would use a wide dollar store nail file to even up the edges and remove the slight angles created by using scissors to cut the oval. Another Ta-Dah!

There's plenty of inspiration and specific instructions for this project and many others on the Heartfelt Creations blog. Enjoy and have a great week!!

stamps; arianna blooms bouquet (heartfelt creations)

ink; black soot distress ink (ranger)

paper; arianna blooms collection (heartfelt creations), coconut swirl (bazzill)

accessories; ornare piercing template (marianne designs), lg classic ovals, beaded ovals (spellbinders), pebble chalks - earth tones (kandee), crystal glitter (art institute glitter), quickie glue pen (sakura), 1/4" scor-tape (scorpal), copics: R56, 81, 83, 85, 89, G0000, 29, 40, 43, 46, colorless blender