November Swap COF

For the November Swap at the Circle of Friends the hostess sent us some stamps and we were to use them to create anything that inspired us. We received two sets of clear stamps - one with two flowers and one with butterflies and a bird, some of my favorite images. But I must say I was really challenged with this project and it took me almost three weeks of looking at the stamps and looking at the paper I wanted to use to get inspired. It finally all came together and here is the final result - a small hanging inspirational card.

For the base card I used this great paper I found at Reddi Arts, a shop

here in Jacksonville, FL, it is a recycled brown Rough Sketch paper, but I wanted to find a way to use it in this project. I used Distressed Ink in Spiced Marmalade all around the edges of each card and a bit over the whole piece. Using a watermark ink I stamped the flourish in the background and then added the saying and bird, both from Tim Holtz clear stamp collection Artful Flight using Pearlescent Chocolate Brilliance by Tsukineko. I glued the art piece to an really pretty orange cardstock to make it a little more sturdy and then added the little corner pearls from Basic Grey.

For the flower I stamped it on Grungepaper and cut them all out, added Distressed inks in a variety of different colors - for this one I used Faded Denim and Mustard Seed in the center. Because the Grungepaper is soflexible I used a toothpick and wrapped each petal to give it a bit of curled dimension. I added Distressed Stickles in the same colors on the flower and at the edges of the petals I used Picket Fence Stickles. To glue the flower I only used glue dots in the center so that the petals are free and can be "fluffed" to add even more dimension to the piece. Here's a close up of the flower.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I have inspired you to create,