Beaded Blossoms

This card has been done since the 7th of this month, so it's not like I'm getting new stamping done. :)

This is my Mom's birthday card this year. I was away at Convention when her birthday happened, so when I got back, I wanted to be sure to both use a new set (she's a stamper, too), and give her something special. I was so incredibly pleased with how this turned out, and it was so fun to see her really appreciate the work this card took. She reported back that she's going to frame it. :)

I'm including some step-by-step pictures for this one. Not because it's hard, but because it's very detailed. This is the new set, Inspired by Nature. In this one, I was just going for basic color, rather than adding detail. I colored the flowers with markers, working from the lightest color to the darkest, and along the stem, I added additional highlighting by drawing a marker just along the edge. The grass was stamped twice, basically in a light green, then a darker green.

Stamp the flowers a second time, adding more detail to the flower heads. Little did I know that by the end, I wouldn't even see the paper on the heads ...

Cut out the flowers and stems. Another option is to just cut out the heads.

This is where the dimensionals (foam dots) come in to making it really special. Below I show it just laying over top of the first stamped piece. You can tell that it was all cut out, and that's always a nice touch.

But, ooh! When you add the dimensionals, it jumps a whole level in wow ( ... at least I think so).

Here's a shot of all the dimensional bits that I used. Because the pieces are narrow, I used the pieces around the edge of the sheet of dimensionals (sorry, no picture of that), and just snipped out smaller pieces to fill up those tiny areas.

Then I used my edger tool to distress all the edges of the white and Rose Red paper pieces. It's mounted to my stand-by green, Old Olive as a base.

One thing I really like about how this turned out (accidentally), is how the large petal on the right hangs over just a smidge, and that one of the bottom stems is actually wrapped under the base image over onto the back. You can click on the image for a closer look.

I liked this pretty well, but to take it to a shabby-chic level, I used markers (More Mustard and Creamy Caramel, I believe) and my color spritzer. Then, I covered the heads with Tombo Mono Multi glue and poured clear micro beads over the top. It was fine, but then I unearthed some tiny pearls and pushed those into the glue, too. The pearls are the only non-Stampin' Up elements on this card. Over top of the micro beads and pearls, I dropped some More Mustard reinker and carefully, carefully dabbed off the excess with the corner of a piece of paper towel.

I had taken a picture of the whole card, but it's weirdly blurry and, well, I don't have the card anymore to take a new one. You'll have to see the one at the top for details on how this last picture looks with all the embellishing. :)