One of the many beautiful flowers in the Stampin' Up! Collector's Stamp Set for March, Best of Flowers, is one of my favorites, Stipple Hydrangea.  Way back when, it was the only flower in the set and was used in so many beautiful projects! If there was only one reason to buy the Best of Flowers stamp set, it would be to get this retired Stipple Hydrangea stamp! This was one of the premier stamps to use for stamping on tiles back then.

On this card, I stamped the hydrangea in Stazon Black ink on Shimmery White card stock. It is colored in with my favorite tool, the Aqua Painter, using various Watercolor Wonder Crayons. It isn't a huge artistic endeavor….just plop down some color from the watercolor crayons on the petals, not even filling in completely or anything, and move the color around with the Aqua Painter.  You can do it without being a watercolor artist!  But you'll look like you are!

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I don’t know if these flowers in the stamp set Everything Eleanor are azaleas, but they at least resemble them.  I know there are blizzards and snow in many parts of the country, but my azaleas are blooming! In fact, the annual River Oaks Garden Club Azalea Trail will be coming up the weekend after next.

Everything Eleanor is a beautiful stamp set, yet I haven’t used it a lot. I stamped the swirl with Gumball Green and stamped with flowers in Black Stazon so I could color them in. To color the flowers, I used my trusty Aqua Painter, which has water in the barrel, so it’s like using a paint brush with its own supply of water!  Since the flower images already have a lot of highlight marks on them (the little black lines), I colored in those areas with Primrose Petals ink first. Then I added a little more water to the dab of ink in the lid of the ink pad to lighten it and colored in the rest of the petals with the same color. When you are using Whisper White card stock rather than watercolor paper, you do have to be careful not to add too much water or work the coloring too much because Whisper White won’t hold up to it. But I can usually use it fine with just some light coloring.

The greeting is from Loving Thoughts.

Then I thought a butterfly or two might be in order. I punched out several colors plus one vellum one to see what I would like and Primrose Petals and Summer Starfruit won! I embossed both with the Lacy Brocade Embossing Folder, adhered them each with a Glue Dot, and added some Basic Rhinestone Jewels. The punch is the Bitty Butterfly Punch.

You could stamp a card like this and then add any kind of sentiment or greeting you wanted.

Stampin’ Up! has all the supplies you need to make this card!  Please visit my Stampin’ Up! Online Store here…..and don’t forget about Sale-A-Bration!  With every $50 purchase in merchandise, you get to choose one free product from theSale-A-Bration brochure.  Good until March 22!  But don’t wait until the last minute!

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Sympathy cards are the ones we all hate to have to make, yet hopefully they bring much comfort and caring to the recipient. And we all know from experience that when you lose a loved one, every expression of love and sympathy helps ease our pain.

Maybe making sympathy cards are one of the most important things we can do with our stamping and cardmaking. This one is fairly simple. The Apothecary Art stamp set gives the card some formality and elegance. It may look complicated to color in, but really it is not.  Just take a few moments to add a little color to the flowers and then the leaves are easy. The sentiment is stamped with the Loving Thoughts stamp set. I added half of a Tea Lace Paper Doily underneath. The Apothecary Art stamped image is cut out with the Labels Collection Framelits. The background is embossed with the Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder. The little flower is one from the Vanilla 5/8″ Flower Trim in the Spring Catalog and dipped in a little bit of Daffodil Delight ink (just tap or twist the top of the flower into the ink pad). The little bit of 5/8″ Victoria Crochet Trim and Whisper White 5/8″ Organza Ribbon are shown in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog. (I know the vanilla of the crochet trim doesn’t really “match” the Whisper White, but I did it anyway!)

Today was supposed to be a rainy, stormy day here in Houston and we have had a little bit of rain at my house and some people are getting storm warnings, but nothing like I thought we would have. So I thought a card with dark blue clouds,Island Indigo and the Cloudy Day Textured Impression Embossing Folder, using the Rain or Shine stamp set in the Stampin’ Up! Spring Catalog would be perfectly appropriate today!

One of the top things people mention as the best thing about Stampin’ Up! is always their coordinating color collections. I used all 2011-13 In Colors plus two neutrals (Whisper White and Soft Suede) so I wouldn’t have to even think about what colors coordinated with what. The card base is Calypso Coral, the cloudy layer Island Indigo and the oval Pool Party.  The umbrellas are stamped in Calypso Coral ink, Wisteria Wonder and Lucky Limeade; the greeting in Island Indigo and the raindrops in Pool Party.

I just hand-cut the umbrellas but it wasn’t very tedious (at least if you have the Stampin’ Up! Paper Snips!) If you wanted to make it even simpler, you could cut straight across the bottom rather than go in and out the scalloped edges of the umbrellas, plus cut off the little top. Only one handle is cut out, the other two are stamped with Soft Suede.  The ovals were easy to cut, of course, with the Ovals Collection Framelits Dies.

For any stamping supplies you may need, Stampin’ Up! has the best! Visit my Online Store or contact me with your order.

Today is known as Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, which refers to the rich, fatty feasting during the carnivals before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent and fasting leading up to Easter Sunday. The colors of Mardi Gras are purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.

I made this card with the Oh Hello stamp set using Mardi Gras colors to commemorate the day. The Champagne Glimmer Paper stands in nicely for gold. (Champagne Glimmer Paper IS still available #127885). The more I used the Oh Hello stamp set the more I love it!  I colored in the chevrons using Stampin' Write Markers with three different colors: Elegant Eggplant, Gumball Green, and More Mustard. Maybe I should have used Summer Starfruit so I would have ribbon to match, but sometimes colors appear lighter when you stamp with markers. To easily cut out the ovals, use the Ovals Collection Framelits Dies.  Purchase them with the Oh Hello stamp set in a bundle and save 15%!

If you want to scrapbook your Mardi Gras photos and memorabilia, Stampin' Up! has all the stamps, ink, paper, and accessories that you need!  You can shop online here any time! Or email me at Karen@KarenStamps.com.

If you want to read more about Mardi Gras, check out this article from the Times-Picayune of Greater New Orleans.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!!

(Let the good times roll!)