For a change from Halloween and Christmas ideas, here is the Beautiful Bouquet Floral Anniversary Card I made for my daughter and son-in-law. I can’t believe they are starting to rack up quite a few anniversaries now.
I started with one card idea and as I began putting the card together I didn’t like it. What to do?? Sometimes I can keep playing with something and it will turn out, but this time I turned to the Stampin’ Up! catalog for inspiration. I found it on page 85 up in the top corner. I already had stamped and die cut some of the Beautiful Bouquet flowers for the original card idea so that’s why I immediately went to the Beautiful Bouquet Stamp Set in the catalog.
Often you may not have the same products they used on a card or project in the catalog. It is highly likely that you can substitute something you DO have at that moment. Then if you really want that product, you can put it on your next order. But if you need something right away, just choose something in your stash!
For example, on the catalog sample on page 85, behind the bouquet of flowers is a die-cut made with the Stitched Lace Thinlits. I don’t own that so instead, I chose to emboss the entire background with the Stylish Scroll Embossing Folder. I think that works out fine even though I didn’t have the lace background.
For all the leaves, I just chose several colors of green cardstock and punched or die-cut sprigs and stems of leaves.
The flowers can either just be stamped or you can play a little in the way the sample was made and do some “faux watercoloring”. In this technique, the stamp is inked up and then spritzed with water before stamping. Just spritz lightly to barely moisten the ink and then stamp on Watercolor Paper. You probably want to make extras and then decide which ones came out the best or which ones maybe have an edge that didn’t come out well but you can stick underneath another flower! There is even a Whisper White die-cut scroll of flowers and leaves die-cut with the Flourish Dies.
For the suggestion of a vase, I die-cut a piece with the Stitched Rectangles Dies. The bow is tied with a piece of Braided Linen Trim and adhered with Mini Glue Dots. The tag in the sample is made from a punch in a kit, but I just used a die from the Ornate Frames Dies. The greeting stamped on the tag is from the Itty Bitty Greetings Stamp Set. This is a great stamp set to own! Then the tag is tied on to the bow with Linen Thread.
For some extra sparkle, I colored the flowers with some Wink of Stella and added a Gold Faceted Gem to one flower. Some of the flowers are popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals.
I made this card for an anniversary, but of course, a bouquet of flowers whether real or on a card can be given for many occasions. This exact same card with a different greeting could be for a birthday, sympathy, congratulations, even a wedding. That’s what makes the Beautiful Bouquet Stamp Set so useful and versatile.
