Cure For The Monday Blues Challenge # 21 - Placing Pizzazz

I have been feeling in a floral mood today - probably because we have some gorgeous blooms out in our back garden at the moment. I'm not sure exactly what these purple flowers are, but they have very dark centres and pretty frilly leaves and are looking particularly lovely this year.

 

 

 

 

We built an arbour last year and planted some honeysuckle at the back, which we took as a cutting from my Dad's original plant. We bought a pair of red climbing roses to train up the trellis each side - we chose these as my Dad used to love roses and David's Mum used to love red flowers, so we thought it would be a nice way of remembering them both. This year they are doing really well and have produced some stunning velvety red blooms, so I couldn't resist taking some photos to share.

 

 

 

This week Taheerah has chosen an inspiration photo which also has bright flowers, http://littlemisst-papercraft.blogspot.com/2014/06/cure-for-monday-blues-challenge-21.html , so I decided to focus on those and design a more Clean and Simple card. Those of you who know me will realise that I don't usually do CAS - I am always too tempted to keep adding layers and embellishments - so I think I've been much more restrained for once - Lol!

 

Source: Pinterest

 

 

I decided to concentrate on the three blooms in the inspiration photo above, so I selected the pretty peony stamp from JustRite's "Seeds of Summer" clear stamp set (CR - 03755) and started by stamping it onto some Friskett masking paper and cutting it out carefully to make a mask. Working directly onto a white DL card blank I then stamped a vertical row of three of the peonies using Watering Can Archival Ink and my mask. I used Tim Holtz Distress Markers in bundled sage, festive berries, mustard seed and spun sugar to scribble some ink onto an acrylic block, then I picked this up with a fine detail tipped waterbrush to watercolour the flowers. As I hadn't used watercolour paper the card warped a little, so when it was dry I found my iron and actually ironed it smooth again!

 

 

Please click on the photo for a better view.

 

 

The Thank You sentiment is from Clearly Besotted's "Many Thanks" clear stamp set and was stamped with Tuxedo Black Memento Dye ink. I used foam tape to adhere the sentiment to a banner which I made by stamping the polka dot background from the "Gingham & Co" clear stamp set by Waltzingmouse Stamps with Rose Bud Memento Dye ink and trimming into a banner shape. At this point I had to sit on my hands to stop myself from adding anything else!

 

So I have probably shocked you three times today - with a CAS design, doing some ironing, and (very unusually for me) completing and blogging a card several hours before the actual challenge deadline! I think I'd better go and lie down in a darkened room!