Brons Birthday Blog Hop #1

#1 Theme: An Inspiration Picture

We're a group of stamping friends that are celebrating Bron's 60th Birthday in 2022 with six blog hops, over six months, with six fun themes! We have an inspiration pic for tonight's hop (ie its Bron's Blog Header). 

Isn't it a lovely picture. For me, the picture speaks of tropical and of holiday. I love the colour scheme, the delicate pink flowers and shawl, the off-white wooden boards, the roundness of the coconuts and the curve of the straw bag handles. All these things inspired my card:

As I was writing the blog I realised the card looked rather washed out. It looked fine in real life but the camera didn't seem to pick up some of the subtleties. I couldn't let it rest so added some watercolour pencil colouring and blended it with a Blender Pen. Which do you prefer - the card above or the one below with extra colouring. 

I chose the retiring Timeless Tropical stamp set and white heat embossed flowers and leaves on Shimmery White card-stock. 

Flowers and leaves were water-coloured using Blushing Bride & Pear Pizzazz Classic Stampin' ink, and a leftover piece of Shimmery White card-stock was water-coloured with Crumb Cake ink. Once dry, leaves were punched out with the gorgeous Bough Punch.

A piece of the B side of Heart and Home Designer Series Paper was used for the background to replicate white planks. As the flowers were so delicate in colour the wood grain did dominate a little so I embossed a piece of Vellum card-stock with the now retired 3D Plank Embossing Folder - it was perfect to maintain the wooden plank theme. This was layered over the DSP.

A die cut circle (cut using the Layering Circles die set) was popped up on Dimensionals. The water-coloured flowers were positioned around the edge of the circle and the water-coloured leaves were tucked underneath. The punched Crumb Cake leaves also were tucked in and around. A sentiment from the Timeless Tropical stamp set was white heat embossed onto Crumb Cake card-stock and fussy cut. A piece of Frayed White Ribbon was further frayed and tucked under the sentiment. Several Pearl Basic Jewels were scattered around. I'm sure the clam shell in the picture would have produced a pearl.

I love to decorate the card inner to coordinate with the front design. A thin left over strip of the same DSP as adhered at the bottom and an extra water-coloured flower and leaf were added. It's also important not to have a naked envelope so a few flowers were stamped in Blushing Bride ink on a C6 Basic White envelope.

As mentioned, I added some extra colour to the flowers with a Melon Mambo Watercolour Pencil and softened the colour with a Blender Pen and re-photographed. Which version do you prefer?

Thank you so much for dropping in and helping to celebrate Bron's coming birthday. It is such a pity that Bron wasn't able to celebrate with an overseas holiday, but it is going to be so much fun to celebrate with monthly blog hops over the coming 5 months. We will be here again on the Tuesday 3rd of May, launching the hop at 7.00pm EST where we will have a Retro theme.

Hop over to the next blog, by the amazing Lou Kitzelman and check out her gorgeous creation. Just click on the graphic below to be taken to her Blog.

  

Apart from the Blog Hop there is also an Instagram Hop starting with Bron at @addinktivedesigns. Check it out too - there is more creativity to find.

#bronsbdaybloghops #stampinup #stampinupdemo  #handmadecards #makeacardsendacard #timelesstropical #stampinupdemonstrator #papercrafting