Thinking of blossoms...

One of my favorite parts of living in Baltimore is the brief and beautiful flowering of the trees. Neighboring D.C. is famous for their Cherry Blossoms, but Baltimore puts on its own show...my favorite part is the "Spring Snow," when the blossoms drop and the streets are filled with pink, peach, and white petals.

With Spring just around the corner, this seems the time to practice with my new Cherry Blossom Branch stamp. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect color combo for inspiration than this week's Color Throwdown Challenge: So Saffron, Pretty in Pink, Tangerine Tango, Chocolate Chip. I pulled out my chalk inks and carefully inked on the separate colors; I found that a makeup sponge works great for applying ink in small areas. Happily, I've seen blossoms exactly these colors. Our neighbor has an bright-orange-flowering tree that's simply breathtaking. Can't wait!

Although it was very difficult to keep it simple, Allsorts' Handmade Flowers challenge inspired me to add a little paper blossom on the front. Coincidentally, I have a bag of different-sized tiny flowers and leaves that I designed and cut with SCAL and Cricut last year and never used. I worked the paper with an emery board, and sewed the blossom and leaf to the backing paper, including a orange seed bead for the center.

I had so much fun sewing the front panel with my machine, that I added some stitching to the message portion inside. Also for the inside, I found a complementary branch stamp and stamped it several times in the same soft brown I used for the branches on the front image.
Inspiration:
Color Throwdown #130
Allsorts Challenge #92: Make your own flowers

Supplies: Hammermill, DCWV and Core'dinations cardstocks, emery board, Cricut & SCAL, ColorBox and Martha Stewart chalk inks, Cherry Blossom Branch stamp from Inkadinkado Asian by Design set, branch stamp from K&Co. Amy Butler Lotus Floral set, sentiment stamp by gstudio, stash plastic bead, sewing machine and thread

A mix of the old and the new

During my brief stint as a Publications Design grad school student, I collected a lot of paper samples, most of which I've never been able to use because they're too expensive for the small companies I work with. They come in handy when I'm making paper and color decisions for print, but I've been itching to craft with some of it. This week's challenge on Crafty Cardmakers is stitching, and the blogmistress commented that this would be a great opportunity to "finally master that dusty old sewing machine." So I thought, Whatever you say stranger!, and lugged my bottom up to the attic and did just that. Well, there was no mastering going on, but I like the result. It was really easy!

The card itself is a Pantone-on-offset-paper example so all I did was steal their awesome image! I did design the sentiment, which made me feel warm and fuzzy. The thread used can also be seen on our blinds downstairs!

Inspiration: Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #33: Stitching
Stamping technique: the print/stamp method
Card/image: Synergy by Fraser Papers
Text paper: options by Mohawk, Warm White Smooth 65# cover