SUCCULENT IN A CUP

My card today uses so much cool Stampin' Up! product! The items featured hail from the Annual Catalog, Sale-A-Bration and Paper Pumpkin, as well as a couple retired things.

The precious cup with a succulent growing inside it comes from the February Paper Pumpkin kit. The stamps that accompany that kit, both illustrative as well as the sentiments, are terrific. The cup and the row of four flowers decorating the cup are two the stamps included in the kit.

The cool complementary succulent stamps that make up the background for the card are from one of the Sale-A-Bration freebies. Actually, it is just one stamp, inked in Calypso Coral, but stamped off first, and Pool Party, stamped full strength. To give them a little different look each time I stamped it, I turned the stamp randomly.

One suggestion I should add here, if you don't already know this: When stamping a background of the same image, always start with one near the center and work towards the edges from there. If, on the other hand, you start at an edge, by the time you get to the center, you may not have room to squeeze in an image in the remaining space. I hope this makes sense to you.

With the texture of an embossing folder (Tin Tile Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder on the inside back cover of the Occasions Catalog) and the liberal use of Stampin' Dimensionals, the card boasts a nice amount of dimension without being too bulky.

I used Stampin' Blends in Calypso Coral, Bermuda Bay, Crumb Cake and Old Olive to color in the teacup with succulent image. I did a little blending with the markers. The Blends are so much fun to play with! I just cannot get enough of them, and am working on completing my set of all the colors available.

Following is a close-up of the colored piece. As you can see, after the coloring was done, I die cut it with one of the Stitched Shapes Framelits. I then stamped the plant one more time, colored and fussy cut the front four leaves, then popped them up over their original counterparts with a Dimensional to give it a more realistic look. I also added some of the tiniest Basic Pearls to the four flowers that I stamped on the front of the cup.

The textured tile behind the diecut circle was first of all cut with a square from the Stitched Shapes Framelits, then run through my Big Shot centered inside the Tin Tile Embossing Folder.

Once I placed the focal point upon the stamped background, it looked lovely, but needed just a bit more of something else. I dug out two of my old Framelit sets to cut some banner shapes. I used the Tin Tile Embossing Folder to add some echoed texture to the largest banner. For the two smaller banners, I repeated the look of the background by stamping each of them with one of the background succulent colors. I stacked the three banners, attached them to the back of the focal piece, then popped them up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

I was asked today about where I would put a sentiment on this card. My answer was INSIDE. I think the outside of this card is lovely without any added words. Besides, if I'd stamped "Happy Birthday", for example, on the outside of the card, this card could only be used for a birthday. While a card that looks like this can be used for any of a number of occasions, by leaving the front sentiment-less, I can grab it for any appropriate occasion and stamp the needed sentiment inside the card.

Sometimes I am lucky enough to create a card that just makes me smile when I look at it. This is one of those cards.

Succulent

Smiles.