I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard that Stampin’ Up! was bringing back Blackberry Bliss as a permanent member of their colour offering.  My regular blog followers will know that I am a purple girl through and through, and I love the rich regal colour of Blackberry Bliss.  Of course pair that with gold and you have a simple combination that can make any project stand out.

So while I’m applauding the colours it’s with a tinge of sadness as I remind you of a great stamp set that is being retired, Awesomely Artistic.  I was very late to the party when it came to this stamp set, I suppose I just didn’t ‘get’ the odd assortment of images.  That soon changed once I started to play and it’s become a firm favourite of mine.

This is a simple project layout, the card base is Thick Very Vanilla Card cut and scored using my Stampin’ Trimmer, folded along the scored line and the crease sharpened with a Bone Folder.

I wiped a layer of Very Vanilla Card with an Embossing Buddy to remove any oils and static and then stamped the large foliage image from the Awesomely Artistic Stamp Set using VersaMark Ink.  The sticky ink was sprinkled with Gold Stampin’ Emboss Powder, the excess tapped off and some stray specks removed before the rest of the embossing powder was melted using my Heat Tool on 2 (high).

While I was at my embossing station I used the same process to stamp and emboss the ‘friend’ sentiment on Very Vanilla Card and then cut that out using Paper Snips.

The other elements on the front of the card are the woven image stamped onto Very Vanilla Card using Blackberry Bliss ink and cut into a banner shape.  This stamped banner was then layered on top of a banner cut from a strip of Blackberry Bliss Card.  The circular image was stamped in Blackberry Bliss ink onto Very Vanilla Card and then punched out using the 1″ Circle Punch.

With the stamped and embossed pieces ready I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to attach the Very Vanilla layer to a layer of Blackberry Bliss Card, this was fixed to the card base with Stampin’ Dimensionals.  Next came the two banners, fixed to the Very Vanilla layer with liquid glue.

The threads (individual strands from some Blackberry Bliss twine taken from the new Natures Twine pack) were attached to the back of the punched piece with Mini Glue Dots and then added to the end of the banners with a Stampin’ Dimensional.  All that left was the sentiment fixed at one end to the punched piece with a little dot of liquid glue and over the banners with a Stampin’ Dimensional.

On a separate layer of Very Vanilla Card I used Blackberry Bliss ink to stamp the circular image in the centre towards the top.  Then this layer was fixed inside the card base with liquid glue.

To finish the project I stamped the circular image in the centre of the flap on a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope.

Oh I do love this color combination but I’ll certainly miss the retiring Awesomely Artistic Stamp Set.  Back when this stamp set was first released I’d never have guessed I’d being saying that.

SUPPLY LIST

The Blackberry Bliss Card and ink pad, and the Nature’s Twine will be available to purchase from June 1st.  All the other Stampin’ Up! tools and materials I used to create this project can be found in the table below.

RETIRING STAMP SET – Like all retiring stamp sets the Awesomely Artistic Stamp Set is only guaranteed to be available until May 25th, after that time it can only be purchased while stocks last.