wildflower garden revisited

Happy May, everyone! Is it spring where you are? It's been raining like crazy here and some snow has still been in the mix too here in Minnesota. I am looking at the fact that we have a camping trip planned for Memorial weekend in northern Minnesota and I wonder if it will warm up enough by then? We will see!

The first of the month means that it is time for the Papertrey Ink senior design team challenge and this month we are revisiting an older set of mine: Wildflower Garden. Did you know that the flower images are actually from my garden at our old house that I put right onto my scanner to create the stamp set? It's true. And, I adore the sentiments in the set and still remember how much I loved collecting them, choosing the fonts, and putting the sentiment designs together for the set.

Usually, when I work with the Wildflower Garden set, I tend to lean towards different watercolor techniques. I actually did one not that long ago for Make it Monday: stamping the flowers with watercolor mediums colored right onto the stamps.

This time, I wanted to do something different that what I normally do. I went through some of my inspiration on Pinterest and found this picture of an embroidered skirt:

image source: Anthropologie

I took the idea and decided to translate it to a card using the Wildflower Garden set. I did 2 versions of the card design. One very clean and simple and then on the second I stepped it up with a few more elements.

Here's the first card. I stamped the flowers from the Wildflower Garden set onto the Spring Rain cardstock with Fresh Snow ink. Just the basic stamping of the images in white ink onto the light blue is so pretty.

I stamped the sentiment in black and then added the frame around it using another set from quite a while ago: Vintage Labels. I love the shape of the frames from this set. It's definitely one I need to pull out more often!

Here is the stepped up version of the same card design. This time I embossed the flowers in clear onto white cardstock and then used an ink blending tool to apply the Spring rain ink. Where ever the flowers are embossed, they resist the ink.

I am crazy about that tonal color from using the ink blending tool! I also sprinkled a bit of water onto the inked background for bit of texture.

I stamped the sentiment onto the die cut piece that coordinates with the Vintage Labels set in black ink and then added just a few Classic Kraft buttons to finish off the design.

Here's a look at the two versions of the cards side by side. Which on is your favorite? I am partial to the stepped up version because of how beautiful that background turned out. I also really like how embossing really helps the flower images pop on that card.

Make sure to visit the rest of the Papertrey Ink senior design team to see the projects that they created with the Wildflower Garden set: Betsy, Dawn, Maile, and Melissa.

I will see you very soon for the May release countdown! Thank so much for stopping by today!

Supplies:

all supplies from Papertrey Ink unless noted

Wildflower Life Card

size: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

stamps: Wildflower Garden, Vintage Labels

ink: Fresh Snow, Jet Black Archival (Ranger)

cardstock: kraft, Spring Rain

other: corner chomper (We R Memory Keepers)

Embossed Wildflower Life Card

size: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

stamps: Wildflower Garden, Vintage Labels

ink: Spring Rain, Jet Black Archival (Ranger), Versamark (Tsukineko)

cardstock: white, kraft

other: Classic Kraft buttons, Rustic Jute button twine, clear embossing powder, ink blending tool (Ranger), Labels One dies (Spellbinders), corner chomper (We R Memory Keepers)