...Springy thanks

Good afternoon - hope you are enjoying the May bank holiday! I'm footering with camera settings and lights, trying to get some decent pics of cards. Today's offering is a 5x5 inch card I made up using various bits and bobs.

I like to stamp. I've never had much of a budget for embellishments and so I don't have vast quantities of goodies that I can combine to create beautifully styled collections on the front of their cards - I admire folks who do this well, but I don't have a lot of time to browse - and it's not like Northern Ireland is brimming with craft stores... These days, even though I could probably get a load of stash from my wholesalers, I often find myself overwhelmed with choice and end up back where I started, making cards with little other than stamps.

The card began with me footering about with an odd little stamp from the Cameo Creations stamp set. I like creating patterns so that's usually where I start when I'm just playing around. This little stamp is a cross shape - made of leaves with a mini heart at the centre, it's just so pretty and can be used to make up lots of patterns. It's that wee stamp, 3rd down on the left hand side in the illo below.

I stamped a little lattice panel with is for the front of the card - I left a little empty space in the centre for my sentiment (from Fine Feathers stamp set), which I blind embossed with a pinked square die from Spellbinders. The pics below show how I stamped the panel again, this time for the inside of the card. I didn't fill the centre in as much for this interior panel - to leave room for writing.

The first time I did it, I eyeballed it, but a grid of dots placed at 3/4 inch apart will help you if you fancy having a go at this.

once I had a square, I stamped the little cross in each corner

Then I added a few flowers - I used a teeny tiny flower stamp from the now retired Earth Angel set, but I'll bet you have something similar lurking about. You can use any small stamp for this, a dot, a mini heart, whatever you have to hand.

This is the interior panel all finished.

The Mackintosh style flowers and leaves on the front of the card come from Simple Sprig. I die cut the shapes first and then stamped my flowers and berries in pinks (SU colours - Pretty in Pink and Melon Mambo) I inked up the leaves in pale green - Memento Pear Tart and then sort of smooched along the edges a bit with a darker green - Bamboo Leaves, I like how that turned out. I did a couple of sprigs in this way. Instead of using the simple sprigs as one piece I chopped off various sections of leaves and single leaves. then I added a little dimension to my leaves by rubbing them with an embossing tool until they went nice and curly - I've heard this called burnishing. It's best to do it on a foam pad, but if you don't have any foam a few layers of kitchen towel work also. I worked on the leaves from the revers to that they curved forwards, but I worked on the flowers from the front so they have a cupped appearance - I liked the contrast.

Hope it tickles and don't forget to scroll down for your invite to our PJ party - it's on the 14th!

Stuff I used (It looks like Pretty in Pink SU ink is no longer available, but any pale pink would do):

Simple Sprig

Memento DewDrop Dye Ink Pad - Pear Tart

Melon Mambo ink pad

Fine Feathers

Cameo Creations

Simple Sprig Die set

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