Stampin' Up! Remarkable You Flower

Lately I've been able to play with the new In Colors a bit more and I'm finding a lot of color combinations that I like with them.  Today's card uses Mint Macaroon and Watermelon Wonder, and is inspired by the Photo Inspiration Challenge over at Stampin' Royalty.  Since there were so many fun things in the new Stampin' Up! Catalog and my budget was limited, I didn't get a chance to order the new In Color Markers yet.  I was kicking myself after ordering this set, but then I realized that I could pull out my (long forgotten) trusty blender pens.  I colored the flower image in by squeezing the ink pads so that some color was on the lid and then I picked up the color with the blender pen.  I think I should do this more often because it allows me to get varying shades of the color as opposed to the single color from the markers (see the flower petals with a bit of shading).

I mounted my stamped panel on Watermelon Wonder and Basic Black, then tied some white stitched ribbon around it.  I added a strip of Mint Macaroon card stock along the side of my white card base and then ran the whole thing through my Big Shot with the Fluttering embossing folder.

Stampin' Up! Petite Petals Gift Packs

What was I up to last week?  It was the last week of school and I spent more time at the school than usual.  I was hoping to make a bunch of packs of cards (6 in each pack) to use as thank you gifts for teachers, staff, and school administrators.  The week flew by and Friday came and I still didn't have the packs made.  I looked thorough my stash of cards and realized that I didn't have enough cards so I thought that I'd have to just let it go this year.  Well, on Friday our whole family joined my daughter's school at the last day of school concert (an awesome concert in the park with a couple of real musicians).  After the concert, we came home and my little one took a nap.  I got this crazy idea that I could bust through a bunch of cards in the 2-3 hours until school was out.  So, I enlisted my preschooler's help and we went to work!

I decided on these "you made my day" cards that I had designed a few months ago, but I changed up the greeting and colors.  Instead of giving everyone an assorted pack, I chose to make each pack have just one main color.  Did you know that preschoolers are excellent punchers and they actually enjoy giving free labor?  My little guy punched out 72 flowers in no time and then he proceeded to peel of Stampin' Dimensionals so that I could adhere all of the colored flowers to my cards.  I honestly couldn't have finished these cards without him.

All of the cards have a white card base and then a Soft Sky background.  I stamped "you made my day" from the Best Day Ever Sale-a-Bration set.  I added some green stems from the Painted Petals stamp set and then punched that out with my 2-1/2" circle punch.  I added the flowers punched with the Petite Petals set and then added a little rhinestone jewel in each center.  On the Soft Sky background, I stamped the bokeh stamp from the Best Day Ever to fill it in a bit.  Then I tied some coordinating ribbon around the card stock before adhering it to my white card base.

I finished with a little time to spare, so I decided that my card packs needed some tags to go with them, so I made 3x3 cards using the Decorative Label Punch, the Painted Petals set, and the Petite Petals punch.  I'm glad I had a few spare hours so I could do a little something for those that do so much for the kids at the school.  Nothing like doing things at the last minute, but if it wasn't for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn't get done!