A Little Reminder........

Hello everyone: I've been out of the blogging loop for a while, trying to sort out a few sad and difficult family issues, and I want to thank my amazing teammates at The Flower Challenge, for their support and love, patience, caring thoughts, and cards I've received, I feel so blessed and grateful to be a part of this group of talented and caring women, thank you again for your love and understanding.

So now, THE FLOWER CHALLENGE is at its halfway point and here's a little reminder to let you know there's still plenty of time for you to come and play along, the theme is "Shaped Cards" so I hope to see you in our gallery.

Here's my card.

I used a retired Stampin' Up! die set for the card base and the main panel, the flowers are from a retired Flourishes set called "Botanical Bookplates", released back in March of 2012.

The image is stamped with Versafine black ink, heat embossed with clear powder and colored with Gansai Tambi watercolors.

I added some enamel dots and a twine bow. The word "amazing" is die-cut with a die I bought from eBay some time ago.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like. 

The sentiment and flowers are from the Flourishes set.

Our Guest Designer is the very talented Alex Syberia and she's giving our lucky winner two of her beautiful digital images as a prize, check out her web site to see the wonderful images she has there.

Stop by THE FLOWER CHALLENGE blog to get more inspiration from my fabulous teammates.

Thank you for stopping by, your comments always make my day.

Hugs.

Maria.

Flower Pot Card for SOS #377.....

Hi there blogging friends: My teammates over at SHOPPING OUR STASH have a fabulous challenge for you this week. The theme is SHAPED CARDS, easy, right? 

Well, the challenge is for you to use any shape except SQUARES, RECTANGLES, OVALS OR CIRCLES, anything else is perfectly acceptable.

So here is my contribution for this challenge, my card is shaped as a flower pot.

I watched several videos on how to make this shaped cards and THIS ONE was the best at how to go about it.  I had my flower pot die set so I just used it for my card, I also went a bit crazy with my flowers, I have a lot more than on the video but still, the way she made the insert was super helpful.

I created the pot with a die set from Spellbinders called "Flower Pots", the flowers were stamped with a retired SU set called "Flower Shop" from the 2013-2014 catalog and punched with the coordinating punch.  I stamped the flowers with different SU inks and then gave them a bit of shadow and color with my Prismacolor pencils.  

The greenery was die cut with the retired SU die set called "Botanical Blooms", the ribbon is also from my SU stash.

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The flowers can be pulled out of the pot for you to write a little massage.

I hope you stop by the SHOPPING OUR STASH blog for more inspiration from my teammates.

Check out their blogs to see how they created their cards and leave them some comment love.

Thank you for stopping by, I always read every single comment you so kindly leave on my posts, I want you to know I appreciate them more than words can express.

Until next time, happy stamping.

Hugs from Maria.

Water Lilies.....

Hello dear blogging friends: This is a friendly reminder from THE FLOWER CHALLENGE, we are at the half point mark for the SHAPE CARDS CHALLENGE in which we are asking you to create cards with other fun shapes besides squares and rectangles.

So this is my Designer Team card that I created using the diamond fold technique, following THIS VIDEO TUTORIAL I found on Linda Bauwin's blog called STAMPING WITH LINDA.

This images are from a retired Flourishes set called "Water Lilies" and it's truly beautiful. I stamped the image on watercolor paper with Stazon black ink and colored it with Sakura Koi watercolors, SU markers and Prismacolor pencils. The sentiment is from the set.  I stamped the big and small Lily Pads on the side panels and then, stamped the Lotus buds on scrap pieces of watercolor paper, colored them the same way and fussy cut them, propping them up with foam dimensionals.

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The brad holds this little door to the main panel so you just swing it open to read the sentiment.

There is enough room in the "inside" panel to write a short little message.

I would like to play along with the following challenges.

Quick Quotes Challenge #86 Theme "Include a Fold"

All Sorts Challenge Week #463 "Spring Flowers or Showers"

So there you have it, I hope this inspires you to come and play along with us at THE FLOWER CHALLENGE gallery, we can't wait to see what you create.

Please read our rules, remember FLOWERS should be the main focus on your cards.

You can enter up to six challenges, including ours.

And please, add our banner to your blog post.

Thank you for stopping by, I always read every single comment you so kindly leave on my posts, I want you to know I appreciate them more than words can express.

Until next time, happy stamping.

Hugs from Maria.

No Squares, No Rectangles, ok?.....

Hello everyone: My teammates and I have a new challenge for you to play with over at THE FLOWER CHALLENGEgallery, this time the theme is "SHAPED CARDS", this means for you to use any other shape except RECTANGLES OR SQUARES.  Make it an oval, circle, triangle, heart, hexagon, etc. you get the picture. So here is my card to inspire you to come and play along.

This image is from a Flourishes set called "Tulips for Friends" it's retired, but now, Power Poppy has a new version of this same image in a Photopolymer stamp set called Loving Tulips.

I stamped this image on a die cut piece of Strathmore 140lb. watercolor paper with Versafine black ink and clear heat emboss it then, colored it with SU markers and an aqua painter.

The black lacy oval was cut with the Spellbinders die set called Oval Regalia, I cut two pieces with black card stock and glue the top part for a hinge, it worked better than I thought. 

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This is how the INSIDE of my card looks like.

The sentiment and the flowers in the bottle are from the Power Poppy set called Go Wild.

So I hope you feel inspired to join us at THE FLOWER CHALLENGE gallery, and for more inspiration please check out the amazing projects of my teammates, go to their blogs to see how they created them and leave them some comment love.

A2Z Scrapbooking linky party April challenge "Flower Power"

Always Happy Birthday Challenge "Anything Goes/option Balloons"

Card Mania Challenge #103 "Spring"

Delicious Doodles Challenges "April, Anything but a Square"

Just For Fun Challenges "Spring Flowers"

Thank you for stopping by, I always read every single comment you so kindly leave on my posts, I want you to know I appreciate them more than words can express.

Until next time, happy stamping.

Hugs from Maria.