I'm all punchy!

I was so excited when Stephanie, the host of the weekly SCS inspiration challenges, asked me to fill in for her this weekend. Of course I said yes! I had a terrible time deciding what to choose, but in the end I went with this gorgeous State Fair bedding from Garnet Hill. Click the link to zoom in and get a close-up view of all the fabulous fabrics they used!
For my card I couldn't reproduce everything they did, so I went with red flowers, blue stripes, and the small blue flowers with red centers. I picked whisper white, ruby red, soft sky, and chocolate chip for my colors.

Let me start by talking about how I made the punched flowers with my five-petal punch. I have to thank my sideline Deana for the idea - she saw it on a web site that she called Stamping Dog, but I can't find it - if anyone has the link, pass it along! I'm sure others have had this idea as well, but it was new to me, so in case it's new to you, here's how it's done. ETA: it's www.stamperdog.com - I knew someone on SCS would know. Thanks!

First punch a flower in the color that you want your flower to be. (Mine were soft sky, but here I'm using chocolate chip so that you can see it better.) Using two-way glue in the removable way, or any removable adhesive, put your flower on a scrap with one point facing down (the reverse of how you punch the flower normally).
















Now you're going to punch the flower again - but this time, position the punch so that you are evenly splitting each petal of your original flower into two smaller petals.














Here is what you get:

















And just because it's cool, Deana discovered that you can also offset how you line up the punch, dividing each petal into one large and one small petal, and it looks like this:









Here are my three finished flowers, with a 1/2" circle punch of ruby red in the center. Before putting them on my card, I sponged them with chocolate chip ink to shabby them up - let me tell you, sponging a 1/2" circle is no easy task!


Now for the rest of the card. The stripe panel uses the Cornish Heritage Farms ticking stripe backgrounder, stamped with soft sky on white cardstock. I used the ticket corner punch and mounted it to a chocolate chip layer and a soft sky card. Let me say that all panels were distressed with my fingernail and the edges sponged with chocolate chip.

To get the red flower panel, I colored just the flowers from the large stamp in the Live Your Dream set with ruby red and chocolate chip markers, then stamped repeatedly to make my own designer paper. Once I mounted it to the chocolate chip layer, I added a soft sky ribbon bow. The flower panel is mounted on dimensionals, and then I attached my three punched flowers to a chocolate chip strip and placed it in the center, with dimensionals at the outer edges and regular adhesive in the middle.

Finally I added the sentiment, which is from Impression Obsession, stamped in chocolate chip. I thought it was the perfect finishing touch for a card that I think turned out very sweet itself.

I had so much fun planning this challenge and making this card, and I hope everyone enjoys playing along. I can't wait to see your creations! The SCS keyword this week will be IC134. If you're not on SCS but still want to play, just leave a comment here with a link to your blog or wherever else your card can be found. Have a great weekend!