Patterned paper and greenery

Last week got away from me, and before I realized it the week was over and I hadn't done any blog posts. Oops! I'm going to try to get back on track this week, and for my first post of the week I have a few cards that combine patterned paper and greenery.

The first two cards feature the retired Boho Indigo stamps and dies (Stampin' Up!) and a non-traditional way to use patterned paper. (At lease it's non-traditional for me.) I started by using the dies to cut out vases from two sheets of patterned paper with muted, tone-on-tone marble-style prints. Some of the vase shapes have little cut-outs in them, and the others are solid (they are the ones meant to cut out the stamped images). To add interest to those vases, I embossed them with a few different embossing folders (the results of the Subtle embossing folder are hard to see in the photo). 

I played around with the arrangement of the vases on two layers of white card stock, and when I was happy with them, I first stamped the yellow flowers and cluster of small leaves. Then I glued the vases in the back row directly to the white panels. The other vases are attached with foam tape, and I used die-cut leaves and branches to fill most of them.

I finished the focal layers with a stamped sentiment and a few enamel dots. Then I layered the white panels on black card stock and adhered them to coordinating blue card bases. I love the way these cards turned out!

I don't make a lot of sympathy cards, but I do try to keep a few on hand so I have them ready to go when needed. For this card I chose a soft light green card base that coordinated with one of the colors in the patterned paper. I stamped the card front with a splatter image to add visual interest and then adhered a wide strip of patterned paper vertically near the left side of the card front.

For the focal piece, I used a stitched rectangle die to cut a white panel, stamped "with sympathy" near the bottom of the panel, and adhered a die-cut sprig in the same color as the card base. I glued down the panel so it covered some of the card base and some of the patterned paper and finished the card with a few simple pearls.

Thanks for stopping by!