Wednesday 29 June 2016

True Blue

Shades of blue and navy are very fashionable this summer for clothes and interior design and it is only natural that cards should  follow this trend too. Stampin'Up keeps an eye on new trends and their range reflects current styles. 

Blue is not the first colour you think of when making a floral card, but when I look around my garden, I see that I have very many blue flowers, not to mention bluebells and forget me nots.

With this mind, and trying to get yet more mileage from the same two stamp sets, Petite Petals and Flower Shop, I made the following two cards.

First off, an amazingly simple 'half and half' card using the Dapper Denim card stock from the new range.

I made a card base using Dapper Denim, one of the new In Colours introduced in the new SU catalogue. I then made a mount in Whisper White card and covered the bottom half with paper from the Neutrals Designer Paper Pack. I chose a soft silver paper with white dots, but other papers would also work - obviously not a floral one though or the punched flowers will get 'lost' against the background.

I used a length of the new Dapper Denim ruched ribbon to conceal the join. This ribbon is gorgeous -not too wide and the ruching gives it a built in texture. It can be a bit tricky to tie a neat bow though.

The greeting I used, stamped in Dapper Denim ink, is from the Suite Sayings stamp set, which has some really useful greetings.

I had already stamped several flowers from the Flower Shop set and punched them out with the coordinating pansy punch. I used a couple of different blue shades - Marina Mist and Dapper Denim, and arranged three different flowers on the left hand side of the card. Only the central flower is elevated by a foam dimensional and highlighted with a White Perfect Accent stud.  I added one tiny Petite Petal flower to balance the group, with a tiny rhinestone in the centre.

With dark coloured card, I always paste a piece of lighter coloured paper inside so that the salutation and message can be seen.

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The second variation is made with Very Vanilla card stock and I covered the front completely with some of the new Moroccan Designer Paper Collection.  This is an absolutely fabulous range of paper designs.  I am not so keen on the Moroccan Tile patterns but the reverse sides are small geometric patterns which are gorgeous and even better in the flesh. Beautiful strong jewel like colours which will be marvellous for Winter cards and 'man cards' as I call them.


I used a band of Dapper Denim card along the bottom half and arranged several large flowers from the Flower Shop set and a few smaller Petite Petals flowers on the blue card. Only two of the large flowers are lifted with foam dimensionals and all the small flowers.  I used a blue enamel dot in the centre of one of the large flowers,  just to fill the centre!

I cut a strip of Very Vanilla card and printed a greeting from  the Cottage Garden stamp set in Dapper Denim and used clear Embossing Powder to highlight it.

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With the scraps left over, I  made a simple matching gift tag using the scalloped tag punch, the same flowers and stamped the word "Gift" from the Perfect Wrapping stamp set and embossed it with silver embossing powder.  The blue strip is only attached at the very top so that it hangs loose and I used the ruched dapper denim ribbon with a tiny bow of silver ribbon through the loop.


I'm getting in my stride now with this blog and hope you are enjoying what I've made.  I don't claim to be an expert cardmaker or stamper but hope that you will see that you don't need to be, to create some nice examples. The co-ordinated inks and papers from Stampin'Up do half the work for you.

2 comments:

  1. Two gorgeous cards Jane. I love Navy and White together, it looks so fresh. Do have a problem when punching out the flowers? I never seem to get it correct or even with the border. Maybe it is a knack of using the punch?
    Keep your cards coming they are a delight to see.
    Christine xx

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  2. Lovely cards Jane - Inspired me to get out my Flower Shop bundle xx But now you got me humming that flipping Madonna song on repeat !!!!!

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