BLENDS FLOWER WREATH

I have kind of an elegant little piece to share with you today.The flowers on this "wreath" were so much fun to color. I used the recently introduced Stampin' Blends for the coloring.

The flower stamp comes from an under-appreciated stamp set that 

Stampin' Up! released in a pamphlet in which 

they were introducing their new alcohol-based Stampin' Blends:

I colored the flowers a few days prior with the Calypso Coral, the Pool Party and the Daffodil Delight two-pen sets. After coloring, I fussy cut them and then they sat on my work table for a few days -- wondering when I was going to do something more with them.

Finally, my decision was to make a wreath of the flowers. To get them in a nice formation, I laid them on my scratch paper about how I wanted them to appear. After measuring the arrangement, I cut from Whisper White a circle that was about the same size. 

I proceeded to adhere the flowers to the circle.

Deciding that they would look striking against a black background, I embossed black card stock with the Layered Leaves Dynamic Embossing Folder. I then laid my wreath upon the background. Ugh. That ugly WHITE in the center just HAD to go!

So, I carefully fussy cut the white out of the center, 

as well as a few places where the white circle showed on the edges.

Unfortunately, the fern-y looking leaves from the Thinlits set I decided to use with my flowers is no longer available in the Stampin' Up! catalog. I used the dies anyway because they added such a nice feathery touch to the composition, in contrast with the more solid look of the flowers

I mounted the embossed black piece to a brushed metallic gold, 

then a layer of Pool Party, and finally, a five inch square of Old Olive.

I popped up the flower wreath with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Another tiny bit of dimension that I added was the Basic Pearl centers 

for each of the flowers that I colored with my Bronze Stampin' Blend marker. 

I love how they go so well with the metallic paper I used in the matting.

I don't think you can quite decipher this in the photo, 

but I added Wink of Stella to the center white squiggles on each flower. 

Believe me -- the sparkle is there.

Have you given the Stampin' Blends a try yet? What are your thoughts? I find them quite enjoyable to work with, somewhat easier than Copics. The blending is quite subtle, but I like it.

Blended

Smiles.