LIVE WITH PASSION

This card, while looking fairly rich and complicated, is actually quite easy to create.

Because I wanted to get virtually all of the Pleasant Poppies image on a piece of Naturals White card stock, the card itself turned out to be larger than the traditional card -- 4 1/2" x 5 1/2". That extra little quarter inch in width makes me a bit crabby because you can only get one card from an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of card stock. Note: With a width of only 4 1/4", two cards can be cut from one piece of card stock. 

One way to get around this would be to stamp the poppy image on a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" piece of Naturals White card stock, which is a quarter of a sheet of card stock. Distress all four edges. Then adhere this piece to a traditional-sized card base. While this would work well, I wanted the mat to extend beyond the borders of the flower piece, thus giving it more of a framed and finished look.

The Pleasant Poppies are stamped on Naturals White in Black StazOn ink. Then, starting lightly, sponge on four colors in jewel tones. Remember, when doing sponging like this to ALWAYS START OUT LIGHTLY. If the tones are not deep or rich enough, you can always continue to add more and more color. I think a background such as this is most effective when there are lighter and darker areas of color. The contrast makes the finished piece that much more vibrant.

The sentiment is from a retired set, but I thought it went so wonderfully with the dramatic looks of this card. I added one of the poppies -- stamped off first -- to the sentiment area, then used one of the Apothecary Accents Framelits in my Big Shot to cut it out. A bit of sponging around the edges helps draw the entire composition together into a cohesive whole.

Smiles.