Pretty Peonies

This is the card I began making during Stamp-A-Faire; I cut the dies at Linda's house - she has the dies, I have the stamp set, so sharing was crucial! It took me a while to find the time to make the card, however, but the stamp set is so pretty it inspired me to work on it as soon as I got a chance. The diecuts and background are all Very Vanilla and I embossed the main panel with PTI's Wrought Iron impression plate. The butterfly and happy birthday were stamped using Elegant Eggplant, and the peonies are Primrose Petals and Summer Starfruit (weird name, but it really is the color of a ripe starfruit!)

Stamp-a-faire tie-dye challenge

I tried Nichole Heady's tie-dye technique to make the flowers on these card boxes. I can't say I'm impressed with the result; I don't really think these flowers look tie-dyed; they didn't come out as I had imagined, but they're kind of cute all the same. (As I linked my post to the challenge link just now, I noticed that it's supposed to be a background.  Oh well.)

I used PTI's Front and Center die to cut out the panels (one set in Aqua Mist - embossed with a Texturz plate - and one in Ocean Tides) and various other PTI dies for the flowers.  I sponged the same color inks, plus a little Peach Parfait or Primrose Petals for the centers, and then used an aqua brush to swirl some water onto the sponged colors.  The little buttons are SU!'s Bitty Buttons, stitched onto the flowers with a bit of baker's twine, and the sentiment is from PTI's Pretty Peonies.

The leaves were cut using PTI's Turning a New Leaf die and "peace, love & flowers" is from PTI's Wildflower Garden.  The ribbons are also PTI:  grosgrain Ocean Tides and twill Aqua Mist.

Stamp-A-Faire offered a lot of new ideas, and it was fun to participate in one of the challenges.