THANKFUL SUNFLOWERS

I know I have gotten a lot of <good> use out of the Jar of Flowers stamp set. Consisting of a mason jar, a shorter vase-type vessel and four wonderful bouquets of seasonal flowers, plus a few other coordinating stamps, it is lots of fun to work with. Completely charming. 

Anyway, I couldn't resist using it once again on this card. The quintessential autumn bouquet was fun because of the presence of lush sunflowers. And, who doesn't love a beautiful sunflower?

As you can see in the photo below, the bouquet has a little bit of a three dimensional look, 

making it seem more realistic.

I colored everything in the bouquet and in the jar 

-- the stems and a touch of Pool Party for the water -- with my Stampin' Blends.

The richness of the bouquet deserved a dark palette of colors. Luckily I had a few sheets left from a retired set of Designer Series Paper with the perfect colors/ It featured Blackberry Bliss and Cajun Craze. I used those two colors for the rest of my card.

Do you notice the little strip of cork along the bottom holding the diecut "thankful"? That is REAL cork adhered somehow to ribbon. I got a spool of this nifty stuff at Dollar Tree, and I absolutely love how it draws everything together, also adding to the autumnal flavor.

Here's a tutorial on how to create a card similar to this one. Hopefully you can locate some of this cork ribbon, because I think it adds such a wonderful touch!

SUPPLIES:

Basic White cardstock

Autumnal Designer Series Paper

Blackberry Bliss cardstock

Jar of Flowers stamp set (page 16, Annual Catalog)

Memento Tuxedo Black ink

Stampin' Blends in:

  Light and Dark Soft Succulent

  Light and Dark Mango Melody

  Dark Granny Apple Green

  Light Cajun Craze

  Light Pool Party

  Light Blackberry Bliss

Die Cutting Machine

Scalloped Contours dies (page 158, Annual Catalog)

Cork Ribbon (Dollar Tree)

Thankful die

Stampin' Dimensionals

Paper Snips

DIRECTIONS:

Fold a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of Basic White cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

Cut a piece of Blackberry Bliss cardstock to 3 3/4" x 5". Wrap a piece of cork ribbon around the bottom of this piece, leaving 1/8" of Blackberry Bliss showing below the ribbon. Tape the ends of the ribon to the back of the cardstock,. Add this to the white card base. Set it aside for now.

On white cardstock, stamp in Memento Tuxedo Black ink the jar with the stems stamped inside the jar, the sunflower bouquet, as well as a portion of the bouquet once again. (Just s stupid note here: When I was proofing this post, I discovered that, instead of typing SUNFLOWER, I'd instead typed FUNSLOWER. I just thought that was funny and had to share. The weird things our minds/fingers can do.)

As you wish, color in all these components. I used Stampin' Blends. When the coloring is finished, fussy cut the bouquet and jar. OPTIONAL: I chose to make my bouquet a bit more dimensional. So I cut out the front sunflower as well as the solid part of the branch way at the back from the second set of images. I added those over their original stamped ounterparts with bits of Stampin' Dimensionals. You can slightly lift the petals of the sunflower to give even more of a bit of realism. This is optional. If you don't want to do all this fussy cutting, just keep it to the original bouquet.

When all the cutting is finished, set the flowers over the jar so the stems seem natural. Glue them together where they meet. Set aside.

From a piece of coordinating Designer Series Paper, use one of the Scalloped Contour dies to cut a mat for your bouquet.

Add the finished bouquet to the center of the DSP with Stampin' Dimensionals. Adhere this panel to the card front above the cork ribbon.

From Blackberry Bliss cardstock, cut the word "thankful" with a die. Adhere this to the cork ribbon.

Thankful

Smiles.