The Beauty of the Garden

As Spring begins to sprout in many parts of the world – let’s honor Mother Nature by showing off the beauty of what we find in the garden. Pick your favorite flower (or fruit or vegetable!) and make it the centerpiece of your card or creation! Link up your Bringing Back Beautiful Challenge creations below to enter. If you upload to SCS, please use the keyword BBB22. You have until May 31st to enter! As we unveil our challenge for next month, we’ll share our True Beauties – those card makers who wowed us with this challenge! Winners will be featured on the Flourishes Blog and will receive a True Beauty blog button to display proudly on their blog!

How would you like to be part of the team in June??  Our favorite Beauty from this month’s challenge will also be asked to join the team for the next challenge, so play along and let’s see all those Beautiful Garden creations!!

Need some garden inspiration, let’s have a peek at what the BBB Team have made for you!

Claudia’s amazing card using Botanical Bookplates Vol 2

(Claudia has been flooded, so her post will be up a later, please leave her a little love.)

Yvonne’s elegant shaped card using Magnolias

Linda’s gorgeous card is using Spring Bouquet

Kathy’s happy card is using Sunflowers

Betty’s stunning card using Magnolias

Iwona’s beautiful card also using Spring Bouquet

Naomi adds a touch of vintage using From the Garden

HOW TO PLAY: Link up your Bring Back Beautiful Challenge below using the Inlinkz Widget. If you upload to SCS, please use the keyword BBB22. You have until May 31st to enter! As we unveil our challenge for next month, we’ll share our True Beauties – those card makers who wowed us with this challenge! Winners will be featured on the Flourishes Blog and will receive a Bring Back Beautiful Winner button to display proudly on their blog!  Our FAVORITE entry this month will also be asked if they would like to join the team for the June Challenge!

CHALLENGE RULES

  • Simply make a card or creation using the Garden as your theme
  • Please make an original creation for this challenge
  • Please mention the BBB challenge in your post or online gallery!

Here are the true beauties from last month. Thank you ladies! If you have won in months past and you would like a Bring Back Beautiful Winner Blog Button, feel free to email Julie at flourishes@bresnan.net and she will send you one right away! We enjoyed seeing all the wonderful creations last month, but unfortunately we have to narrow it down to 3.  Want a peek at the winners? Here goes!

Karen Wallace with her amazing Tri-shutter Card

Lesley Croghan with this blue beauty!!

Miriam’s fabulously bold shaped card

Thanks for visiting and we can’t wait to see what you create this month!!!




Home Sweet Home!

Hi all! This time next week, Flourishes will be wrapping up its sneak peek week with three new beautiful sets being unveiled! So, to get ready for the big reveal….the DT is ushering in a fun-filled challenge to give you a chance to win them all! Mark your calendar — the fun starts NEXT WEDNESDAY!!
All you need to do is play along in the….
HOW TO PLAY:  Let your creativity shine by being inspired by something in your home – it could be the color scheme of a room, a painting, vase or floral arrangement – the sky is the limit on this Home Sweet Home Challenge! Please take a picture and show the inspiration piece in your post. Entries must be in by May 11th at 5PM EST in order to be in the running for the entire May Release! If you upload to Splitcoaststampers, please use the keyword FLLCMAY12! 

While you are out and about hopping around, make sure you knock on the door to stop by and see……

Barbara Anders
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Jan Marie Caruso
Julie Koerber 
Sharon Doolittle
Stacy Morgan
Tammy Hershberger

So look around the house and get those creative juices flowing — it could help you win some fantastic polymer! And… don’t forget to link up using our Inlinkz widget below to be eligible! Happy Friday and Happy Stamping!




Some Bang for Your Buck

 

 


Welcome to another “From The Desk Of Jan!”

Today I am sharing with all of you a way to create beautiful projects, and save some of what’s in your pocket book.  I know that we all our love our hobby, we also want to get the biggest bang out of our buck, especially in these economic times.  Did you know that Flourishes has a “Treasure Trove” of wonderful items? It’s called our Sale Page! And you can find it right HERE!   While we always strive to have the freshest items, we often move items to the Sale Bin  to make room for the new.  That doesn’t mean these items on sale aren’t wonderful! 

Today my focus/challenge was to use supplies all from the Sale Bin. I have created one full size card and one note card made from wonderful items found right on that sale page.   I used Flourishes Classic White card stock for both cards as well as a piece over vellum over the Olivia designer paper.  Not too shabby for all sale bin items.  I found the Webster’s Pages fabric sticker a great asset to both of these cards!  You should really check out these little fabric tickets.  The wonderful pearl swirls I used are also great as I was able to snip apart pieces for accents.    Gosh, how did those darling Basic Grey Glazed Brads in up in the Sales Bin?  The are such wonder soft colors, are easily sanded and colored with my Copic markers!

Here’s a look at my first card,

 

 Now for my second smaller gift enclosure card.

 

Here again I used the Webster Fabric Tickets  and this time as the main focus on the card.  I layered two similar ribbons, tied a nifty bow ( using my Becca Peg Bow Maker) and added another little gem in the sales bin…the turquoise button.  The Webster Fabric Ticket had just the perfect touch of blue, and knowing that these are complementary colors, just pleased me all the more.  Simple little rhinestones in a similar blue under the sentiment from Kid’s Play and I was done.

I invite you to taken the time to check out our Sales bin, find some goodies to add to your card and craft making supplies.  I’ll bet that you can find some special treasures you will put to good use.

Thanks for your visit I hope you will leave a note and let me in on your thoughts. I am so glad you stopped to visit with me today.

 Supplies Used For Card 1

Stamp Set used is ”Sweet Nature”

Paper from Basic Grey Olivia

Country Estate Fabric Ticket

Elegance M Bossabilities – Spellbinder

Pink Pearl Swirl

Basic Grey-Basic Manila Glazed Brads

Memento Ink Black

Tim Holtz Re-inker Tumbled Glass

White Seam Binding (dyed with Tim Holtz re-inker in Tumbled Glass and water.)

Spellbinders Classic Oval Die (Medium)

Basic Grey-Met Glazed Brads (this was colored to match the color of the flowers with Copic Marker RV25 from the Dogwood Collection.)

Supplies Used for Card 2

Vintage Teal – Blue Marble Brads

Trend Setter Fabric Tickets

Basic Grey Basic White 6×6 Paper Pad

Memento Ink Black

May Arts-Solid Two Tone-BitterSweet

May Arts Solid Iridescent Orange/Parrot Green

Ciao,


Timeless Tuesday #167

Hi everyone it’s Cindy  and it’s my turn to hostess this week’s Timeless Tuesday Challenge.  Today is all about Butterflies, add a Butterfly paper, diecut, stamp whatever
takes your fancy!!~ I have used a Marianne Designs Butterfly along with the
Beautiful flowers from Flourishes Botanical Bookplates Vol. 2.

I love the quote and font from this set and it fits perfectly into the Grommet Tags
always a big plus for me when I’m Creating.

Supplies used:

 

 

 Take a peek at what the other Timeless
Tuesday designer have created for today…

Hugs Cindy xoxo

CHALLENGE RULES


HOW TO PLAY:
Everyone can PLAY and anyone can WIN! Each week Flourishes draws one lucky name for a $10 gift code to the Flourishes store!   Here’s how you can win…

  • Create a new card or paper-crafted project fitting the challenge.  Flourishes stamps are not required, but if you’ve got them, why not use them?  
  • Include a link back to this challenge in your blog post or gallery upload.
  • If you upload to Splitcoaststampers, please use keyword FTTC167.
  • Deadline to enter is next Monday at 6:00 p.m. EST.

One random winner will be picked from all of the entries to win the weekly prize!  

We had 92 entries for Heather’s “Bingo” challenge last week .  Our random winner is #58, Teri Sherman. . Teri, please email Beate at beatejohns@gmail.com to claim your prize!


Orchids for Mother’s Day

Hello Everyone and welcome back to another Flourishes Copic Tutorial!  Today I thought it would be fun to show you how I would colour the Cattleyas from Flourishes’ Orchids Stamp Set!  These gorgeous flowers are so elegant and delicate looking that I thought they would be perfect for a Mother’s Day card since that special day is just around the corner!  Orchids come in such a wonderful array of colours that you can have fun trying all sorts of combinations, however, today I’m simply going to show you one of my favourites using the Black Cherry, Pistachio, New Leaves and Cool Neutrals Collections!

Stamp your image in Memento Tuxedo Black and use the RV91 from the Black Cherry Collection to colour in your petal.  Be careful around the fluted edges using the tip of your brush nib and remember if you do go outside the line you can fix it with your Colourless Blender!

Next take RV93 and gently flick in some colour from the edges and follow the line of some of the folds to add some definition.

Add a little RV95 to darken parts of the petal that would be darker, such as the folds and near the base of the petal. Lightly flick in RV93 and RV91 until you are happy with the look of your petal!

To colour the throat of the Orchid, use RV91 to flick in from around the outer edge, don’t colour the middle at all.

Feathering is a fantastic way of blending two colours from different colour families, which is perfect for the throat of the orchids!  Use Y11 from the Daffodil Collection to flick from the centre of the throat into the RV91 layer of colour.

Darken the edges by flicking in some RV93.

Darken the orchid throat even more by flicking in some RV95, but don’t go as far as the RV93 – leave yourself room to blend some more yellow.

Blend by flicking in RV93 and RV91 and then feather blend Y11 and darken the throat by flicking in some Y15.

To colour the leaves, I’ve used a combination of the Pistachio Collection, New Leaves Collection and Cool Neutrals Collection.  Begin with a base of G40.

Next add some G82 to where the darker areas of the leaves would be.  The Flourishes stamps usually give you great clues as to where the shadow areas would be!

Next, darken those shadow areas even more with G85.

Blend with G82 and G40.  Remember whether it’s 2 or 3 colours, always blend with the NEXT lightest colour.  With your leaves, blend G85 and G82 with G82 and then blend G82 and G40 with G40.

I like a lot of contrast in my images by having very light areas and very dark areas.  You can darken your shadow areas with G94 (you only need a little), but I thought I would desaturate the shadows using the Cool Neutrals collection by adding some C3 – you could even add a little C5 to really add some contrast!

Finish colouring all the leaves and petals as shown and add a little B0000 from the Ice Blue Collection around the edges and complete your card!!

Stamp Sets used – Orchids and Motherly Love.

Colour Collections used

For those of you who like to watch and learn, there is a video for you below.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s tutorial!

Happy Colouring!

Kathy  :)

 


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