It may only be Tuesday but it’s already been a long week. The end of the month is always hectic for me, and May has been particularly manic. It definitely feels like my to-do list is beating me. Still, I take comfort in the fact that I only have a few more tasks to conquer before I can start the new month afresh. Meanwhile I’ll de-stress with a little crafting. So armed with the Cottage Rose Stamp Set, Cottage Flowers Dies and coordinating Abigail Rose paper I set to work.

LOTS OF FLOWERS

My project started with a look through the Abigail Rose 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. There are lots of pretty patterns but I kept coming back to one of the darker designs. This sheet has a sort of canvas look to it, with line-art flowers on a Crumb Cake background so I went with that.

In the end I only used a 3-3/4″ x 5″ piece of the DSP. After cutting it to size I mounted it onto a 3-7/8″ x 5-1/8″ piece of Early Espresso Card using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow).

Thinking that the background was quite dark I decided I needed a much lighter card base and chose Thick Very Vanilla Card. Using my Paper Trimmer I cut and scored the card, then folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder. Then I glued the layered DSP into the front.

Next I turned to the Cottage Rose Stamp Set and the single open rose image. Using Early Espresso ink I stamped the image onto the flap of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope. Then I stamped it across the bottom right corner of a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla Card. Finally I stamped it onto a scrap of Thick Very Vanilla Card. Going back to the Cottage Rose Stamp set I then chose the multi-leaf image and stamped that twice on the Thick Very Vanilla Card.

Colouring the all the flowers and leaves was quick and easy using Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. Without worrying about shading and blending I first coloured the petals on all three flowers with dark Petal Pink. Then with nothing else needed on the Very Vanilla layer I glued that inside the card base.

That just left the leafy images on the the Thick Very Vanilla Card scrap to do. For the individual leaves I used light Shaded Spruce, then finished off with light Crumb Cake on the branches.

COTTAGE FLOWERS DIES

Now all I needed was to cut out the flower and leaves from the Thick Very Vanilla Card and I had dies for that.

The Cottage Flowers Dies are a little different and might need some explaining. The die for the leaves is pretty obvious but what about my flower? Well that is cut by the largest die in the set. Simply locate that part of the die over the flower image and run it through the Cut & Emboss Machine. Another part of that same die will cut out the cluster of three small flowers from the Cottage Rose Stamp Set. In addition the whole die lines up perfectly with flowers and stems printed on the reverse side of the DSP I used for my background. With one pass through the machine you can have a whole pile of pieces to colour (if you want) and layer.

But back to today’s project…

From the Cottage Rose Stamp Set I chose the “Feel better real soon” sentiment. Using Early Espresso ink I stamped it towards the top of a 2-1/2″ x 3-3/4″ piece of Very Vanilla Card. Then I glued it to a 2-5/8″ x 3-7/8″ layer of Early Espresso Card.

Next I put some Tear & Tape Adhesive across the centre of the sentiment layer about 1″ from the bottom. Then after taking off the backing paper I used it to hold some loops of Linen Thread.

On top of the thread I glued the two sets of die-cut leaves,, and topped off the arrangement by adding the flower using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

Using more Stampin’ Dimensionals I attached the assembled layer to the card front and my project was complete.

Despite the dark background I love how this project turned out, it really seems to accentuate the centre panel. What do you think?

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Cottage Rose Stamp Set in a bundle with the coordinating Cottage Flowers Dies. Buying the two products using the single ‘bundle’ item number meant I saved 10% off the cost of buying them separately. I’ve included a link to the bundle below in case you want to explore that option.