Garden Card

Spring has finally arrived here in New York.  We had a wonderfully, sunny and bright week here.  Color is exploding everywhere!  It’s the spring that inspired this beautiful Garden Card, which is just so simple to make.

With a few supplies in colors that you find inspiring, you can create this colorful Garden Card.  You will need, scrapbook paper in a color of your choice, white paper, dye based makers, floral block stamps, a favorite quote, a paper trimmer, double stick tape and any other embellishments that you find festive.

I happen to love dragonflies and was inspired by the purple dragonfly element when selecting my color scheme.  I cut the purple scrapbook paper to A-2 size, which mean cut your paper 5.5 x 8.5 and fold it in half.  I then cut two pieces of white paper.  The background is cut 3.75 x 5 and the front panel is cut 2 x 3.  I cut a mat for the front panel in purple that measures 2.25 x 3.25.

Next, I took my stamp and, using a direct to stamp technique, I added the colored in the flower and then stamped randomly and several times without re-inking.  This is how you get those variations of lights and darks.  It adds depth to the image.  I repeated this process with my other stamps until I was happy with the coverage of my papers.

Once that was done, I assembled the elements.  I attached the larger stamped background paper to the main card with double stick tape.  Then I placed the purple mat where I wanted it and layered the smaller stamped paper on top.  I did pay close attention to the quote stamp’s size.  I was careful to place the paper so that I could fit the quote.  Now, I used a stamp, but a quote printed out onto some vellum would look just as pretty!  Finally I added my element.

So simple…and you can really brighten someone’s day by sending them this colorful and festive Garden Card.  We’d all love to hear about all the variations of this card that you are making.  Hope you’ve been inspired!

Artfully yours…..Theresa