Fabulous Vine and Flowers

I had so much fun making this card and I really love the way it turned out. The glossy paper and all the gold accents catch and reflect light beautifully.

I made it to satisfy two different challenges on SCS. The first was a Ways to Use It challenge to use a faux technique.  The second was a Mixed Media challenge to use a die cut shape that was made out of some sort of text. I figured if I was already going to cut up a magazine for the mixed media challenge, I might as well also use it for the faux technique.

I started with die cutting a magazine article with the Flowers & Vine #3 Bigz die from Sizzix. The resulting die cut was so delicate and flimsy that I also die cut a piece of very vanilla cardstock and glued the printed page to the card stock for stability. I wanted to actually use the die cut piece as a vine, so I sponged the whole thing with gumball green ink.

Next I found pictures that I could use for the faux cloisonné technique. I stamped flower images from the Flower Shop and Petite Petals sets and the butterfly from Backyard Basics in versamark and heat embossed them with gold embossing powder. In the past I would have fussy cut them all out, but today I got smart and chose flowers that had coordinating punches and a butterfly that I could die cut with the coordinating framelits.

Once my pieces were all die cut and punched, I arranged them on top of a plain vanilla card stock mat to see what I wanted to do next. The card definitely needed more bling and dimension. I took al the pieces off and started to add elements. I stamped the very vanilla mat with the Sanded background stamp in river rock ink. I also added a couple of pieces of gold foil washi tape in the upper left corner. I layered a small flower over a large flower with a dimensional and added some gold cord underneath the large flower before taping this assembly in the center of the vine. I added another small flower to the top of the vine with a dimensional. Finally, I attached the butterfly to the mat with two way glue along the spine so that I could fold up its wings for dimension (the picture on which I embossed the butterfly was made of sturdier paper that allowed me to do this without having to glue the die cut butterfly to card stock.)

The card looked OK at this point, but I wanted more bling so I added three gold sequins. I definitely could have left it there, and I wondered if going one step further would be too much, but I couldn't stop myself. I used a stamp from the Oval All set to stamp the sentiment and flower image on the same magazine photo as the butterfly in versamark ink. I stamped the flower image for a  second time on a photo with a different color so that I could create interest with layering. I gold embossed everything and punched the sentiment out with the large oval punch. I also punched a scalloped oval mat from the photo on which I embossed the second flower. I fussy cut this small flower (couldn't get away without fussy cutting after all) and layered it over its twin on the sentiment image before attaching the sentiment assembly to the very vanilla mat with more dimensionals.

Now the card was done and all that was left to do was attach the very vanilla decorated mat to the crumb cake card base. Well that, and to give it away to a fabulous friend :).

Recipe:

Paper: Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake
Ink: Gumball Green, Versamark, River Rock
Stamps: Flower Shop, Petite Petals, Backyard Basics, Oval All, Sanded
Accessories: Gold Cord, Gold embossing powder, Petite Petals Punch, Pansy Punch, Backyard Basics Framelits, Large Oval Punch, Scalloped Oval Punch, Flowers & Vine #3 Bigz die from Sizzix, Gold Foil paper tape by Studio 112 from K&Company. Crafter's Corner gold sequins from Greenbriar Inc.