I'm a bad, bad stamper

I am so incredibly busy that I shouldn't be taking time to play challenges... but I just loved the colors in this week's Colour Q challenge: Cherry Cobbler, Peach Parfait, Pear Pizzazz, Early Espresso, and white. The layout is from Mercy Kerin's latest sketch challenge, which was a really fun sketch to work with.

When I was choosing which stamp set to use, I knew I wanted some kind of flower stamp. It occurred to me while looking through my stamps that I just don't get enough chances to use all these wonderful stamp sets. Plus I get so focused on using brand-new stuff that I forget about all those other stamps! So I'm giving myself the challenge to pull out some current stamps that haven't seen ink in a while instead of excluding them and using only new stamps. Let's see how this goes, shall we?

For today's card I chose the set Vintage Vogue. I stamped three flowers and a bunch of leaves on a white panel, added the sentiment from the hostess set Occasional Quotes, and then cut out my panel using the out of the box technique. The flower centers were punched from espresso card stock. I used two panels from the hostess paper pack - lots of great prints in the In Colors - and cut my circles with the Circle Scissors Plus. Tip of the day: The hostess papers are only 6x6, which makes it tough to cut out the circles, so I firmly taped the sheet to the glass mat with scotch tape. It peeled right off when I was done and I got a perfect circle.

I wanted to do something different for the punched border that Mercy had on her sketch. The SU crochet trims in Very Vanilla didn't work for this card, so I pulled something white from my stash and used it for my "scalloped" border. The bottom of the card looked really naked so I added a couple more flowers cascading down and an espresso button with a little bit of peach ribbon. Don't laugh - I actually sewed the button onto the ribbon! Yes, I can actually sew on a button reasonably well, even though I say I don't sew. Don't expect me to be getting any fancier than this with a needle and thread!