Two Summer Floral Birthday Cards

Dena from the Creativity Cave set a summer floral theme card challenge for her June 2020 Facebook Class group.  Floral cards are a firm favourite with me so I was very happy!  I knew I wanted to use the gorgeous SU! 'Blossoms in Bloom' stamp set.

The multi flower image is a very large stamp and I prefer to use it with my Stamparatus rather than handling a large acrylic block.  I knew I wanted to try introducing more than one colour to the flowers and to achieve that I inked the stamp with Petal Pink ink and then I added Flirty Flamingo ink around the flower centres using a sponge dauber.  I ended up stamping several pieces and I needed to clean the stamp between inkings to avoid Flirty Flamingo ink contaminating my Petal Pink ink pad.  I picked up a brilliant tip from someone on the web which has proved invaluable - cut the SU! shammy into smaller pieces then you have a smaller shammy to quickly clean stamps on your Stamparatus plates.  I bought a separate shammy, cut it into four pieces and this size works a treat.

I stamped several pieces and cut them into panels.  Unfortunately, I placed one of my panels too close to an open packet of baby wipes on my desk which resulted in one whole corner of the panel becoming wet but the wetness didn't spread to affect the stamped image.  I was well on the way to making the Congratulations card when I realised what had happened.  I decided to fussy cut the image and use that on another card and that's how I ended up making two summer floral cards!  Here are the two cards together.

 

Here's the Congratulations card together with the matching envelope.  I think the flowers turned out really pretty! 

 

Here's just the card.  I stamped the dotty flower centre twice using Mango Melody ink and I stamped the small flower using stamped off once Soft Suede ink.  I used full strength and stamped off once Granny Apple Green ink for the leaves. I used two Stitched Rectangles dies to create a frame and glued that over the stamped panel.  I added ribbon to the panel, stamped the sentiment and applied the panel on the wonk to the front of the Petal Pink card base - popping it up on Dimensionals.  Where there are summer flowers there are butterflies so I added a stamped and punched butterfly.  I completed the card front by sprinkling on three Champagne Rhinestones.  

 

Here's a closer look at the butterfly.  I used the small butterfly from the 'Butterfly Wishes' set and inked it with Petal Pink ink but added Flirty Flamingo ink to the edges with the sponge dauber.  I stamped the small antenna (from the 'Butterfly Gala' set) direct to the panel using Soft Suede ink.  After punching the butterfly I shaped it a bit and adhered it in place by gluing the body flat to the panel but popping up the wings with a Mini Dimensional cut in half.    

Here's the inside of the card.  The sentiments for this card come from the SU! 'Peaceful Moments' set.  So classy when the fonts on the front and inside match up!

 

Here's the front of the envelope.

 

So I had my fussy cut floral image as a starting point and as I was considering a layout and playing around with positioning I thought I'd cut around part of the floral image to create a shaped card front.  Here's the card and envelope together. 

Here's just the card.  I applied temporary adhesive to the front of the card blank, placed the floral image where I wanted it and then fussy cut the card front 'tracing' the stamped image with my scissors as it were.  I placed a strip of patterned paper on the inside which shows through due to the cut away front.

 

Here's the card open so you can see the cut away design.  After cutting the card blank I removed the image and temporary adhesive and then repositioned the stamped image in place popping it up on Dimensionals.  I stamped smaller flowers and leaves on the left hand side - again inking the flowers with Petal Pink ink and adding Flirty Flamingo ink to the centres with a sponge dauber.  The flower centres were stamped in Mango Melody ink.  I stamped the sentiment onto patterned paper, layered that on a mat of Soft Suede CS and placed it on the card.

 

Here's the inside of the card.  After the riot of flowers on the card front I decided to use the patterned paper as the main decoration for the inside and envelope.  I was kind of over the inking and stamping by this point I think!

 

Here's the front of the envelope.  I popped up the name label.

 

I didn't intend to create two cards when I sat down at my craft room desk but the wet wipe issue proved to be a happy accident and I'm pleased with how both cards turned out!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Blossoms in Bloom', 'Peaceful Moments', 'Butterfly Wishes' & 'Butterfly Gala' sets
CS: SU! Petal Pink, Soft Suede & Whisper White (regular & thick)
Patterned paper: SU! ''Best Dressed' 6" x 6" DSP pack
Ink: SU! Flirty Flamingo, Granny Apple Green, Mango Melody, Petal Pink & Soft Suede
Tools: SU! 'Stitched Rectangles' & 'Stitched So Sweetly' die sets, 'Butterfly Duet' punch, Stamparatus, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: SU! Granny Apple Green Textured Weave ribbon, Champagne Rhinestone Jewels, Dimensionals
Ruth