Flowers, flowers and more flowers....

It's Papertrey countdown time!  Woohoo!  Tonight I get to help introduce to you two brand new sets.  The first is an encore to Papertrey's popularBeautiful Blooms set. Beautiful Blooms II is packed with fun flowers...and guess what.  Dies.  To match.  heaven.  It makes it SO easy to create your own floral embellishments...and if you've been following my blog at all lately, you know that is something I love to do! 

The second set that's being previewed tonight is a new background set in the Background Basics collection called Botanical...full of pretty patterns with a hint of floral elements.  So...on to some projects. 

This first card is soft and pretty, using my favorite technique of late...making my own flowers. 

Have you been noticing the pretty text print flowers that have been popping up all over?  I decided to try my hand at making my own.  I cut this pretty daisy-style flower from several layers from old book print.  I had five pages of book print and it cut right through... awesome.  :-)  I then stamped one of the flowers with the coordinating stamp in Aqua Mist and one in Sweet Blush.  I then spritzed it with some Glimmer MIst to shabby it up a bit...and also brushed a bit of creamy acrylic paint on the petals.  Fluffed and curled it a bit and embellished the center with a pearl-topped button.  That pretty background?  From the new Background Basics: Botanical, of course.  Isn't it pretty?  I think it's my favorites from the set. 

Next up is a bit more color.  This time I diecut several layers of tissue paper.  I stamped on the top layer of each different sized flower with the coordinating stamp, then layered them all on top of eachother, fluffed a bit, punched a hole in the center and secured it all together with a button. 

I paired the blooms with my favorite jumbo vine from Turning a New Leaf...and as you can see, the flowers are not only great for making your own dimensional flowers, they're great for backgrounds too. 

Next is just a fun technique I've been playing around with....

I layed a bunch of the flower dies randomly on my diecut machine, and placed a sheet of white cardstock over the top and ran it through, allowing some of the dies to extend beyond the edge of the cardstock.

  
 Then I ran it through again with one of the texture plates...isn;t that plaid fun???

I trimmed my diecut and embossed cardstock slightly smaller than my card front and adhered it with just a bit of removable adhesive.  I then stamped my images onto the base of the card, through the diecut openings. 

After the stamping was done, I took the diecut cardstock away and then adhered it with some foam tape to give it dimension...you don't want to adhere the foam tape before you do the stamping or you won't get clean images because of the thickness of the foam. 

Notice how the tag here with the sentiment was made using one of the flower stamps and dies in this set.  The senitment is from Mega Mixed Messages.

And one last card tonight using mostly just the new Botinical background set.  I have been playing with lots of fun color combos lately, but wanted to challenge myself by doing something a little different.  White + 1 other color.  That was hard for me.  But I love the way it turned out.

I used a couple different patterns from the new Botanicals background set, along with the leaves from Beautiful Blooms II to create a cute button flower.  I think the green embroidery floss through the white buttons looks so fresh and clean.

For more inspiration and peeks at the new goods, visit Nichole's blog.  Plus, Dawn McVey,  Melissa Bickford, Heather Nichols, Beth Silaika and Becky Oehlers all have stamp sets coming out this month, so hop on over and check it out!

  

Merci Card: 
Stamps:  Beautiful Blooms II, Vintage Labels, Background Basics: Botanical, Mega Mixed Messages
Ink: Aqua Mist, Sweet Blush, Spring Moss, Smokey Shadow
Cardstock: Rustic Cream
Other:  White/Cream Vintage buttons, Beautiful Blooms dies, silver ribbon, pearl, Cuttlebug tiny tag die, Glimmer Mist, cream acrylic paint

Thank You card:
 Stamps:  Beautiful Blooms II, Turning a New Leaf, Big and Bold Wishes
Ink:  Spring Moss, Pure Poppy, Summer Sunrise
Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Pure Poppy
Other: Pure Poppy button, Pure Poppy Saddle Stitch ribbon, small scallop die

You're Too Kind card:
Stamps:  Beautiful Blooms II, Mega Mixed Messages
Ink:  Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Orange Zest
Cardstock: Stamper's Select White, Aqua Mist
Other:  Beautiful Blooms II flower dies, Orange Zest Saddle Stitch ribbon, Aqua Mist, Orange Zest and Spring Moss buttons, plaid impression plate, small scallop border die

Sending Get Well Wishes card:
Stamps:  Background Basics: Botanical, Big and Bold Wishes, Beautiful Blooms II, Tags for Spring
Ink: Spring Moss, Smokey Shadow
Cardstock: Stamper's Select White
Other:  White/Cream Vintage buttons, Beautiful Blooms II flower die, Melissa Frances lace, DMC embroidery floss