An embossed bouquet

TGIF, everybody! Here we are at the end of another week. If the rest of the year goes as quickly as January has, 2013 will be here before we know it! Heaven forbid! It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend though and after the deluge we just had, albeit very much needed, sunshine and warmth is just what this girl needs to give her mojo a little push start.

Today, I want to share with you my first card using WOW Embossing Powders! I have gotten so used to using primarily digital images on my cards, that I had almost forgotten how much fun it can be to design them using simple shapes and colors. That's exactly what I have done here. I used the WOW "Gratitude" stamp set to create this beautiful vase of flowers.

Each flower is stamped with embossing medium onto different colored cardstock and then embossed with contrasting colors of WOW Embossing Powder. I tinted some white flat-back pearls with a Y08 (Acid Yellow) Copic marker to create the flower centers. I embossed a few of the flowers with the stems in WOW Tea Garden Green on light green cardstock. Then Icut some of the other flowers out and glued them on top of the green flowers so that only the stem and leaves would be green.  I also embossed the leafy stem in Earthtone Olive on a dark green background.

I decided what shape I wanted the vase to be and free-handed it on a scrap of medium blue cardstock and used varying shades of darker blue to shade the outside edges to give the illusion that the vase was actually round. I coated the entire piece in Diamond Glaze and sprinkled it with Crystal Glitter.  To enhance the illusion, I used 3 layers of foam tape to raise the center of the vase and glued the outside edges to the corrugated cardboard I used as my background and to which I sponged a little sky blue and silver acrylic paint. I stamped the heart border stamp onto some white cardstock in Tuxedo Black Memento ink and colored the hearts with Copics in colors that coordinated with the flowers and edged the strip with a red Copic.  I also stamped the triple heart motif onto some pink cardstock, embossed it with Cable Car Red WOW powder and then cut them out and coated them with 2 coats of the Diamond Glaze to give them more dimension.

I used metallic black foil cardstock as a mat for the cardboard background and mounted that onto my 5 1/2" kraft base card.  But there's a little surprise that you may have guessed looking at the pictures.  This is actually an easel card!  Here's how it looks when the easel is folded down.

I cut a piece of 5 1/2" square smooth white cardstock to create the writing area inside the card and then matted a 5 1/2" x 2" strip of some coordinating designer paper, mounted it with foam tape to create the area to support the easel and a place to put my sentiment.  The "Thank You so very much" and cute heart stamps are also part of the Gratitude stamp set.  

As you can see from my photos, these stamps create crisp, detailed images, perfect for embossing or coloring with markers, colored pencils or other media.  The last little surprise is the definition of the word "Gratitude" that I stamped on the inside of the card as seen below.  When the recipient opens it up to read the giver's personal message, they'll see that definition.  I really love this stamp set, which has 3 additional stamps that I didn't use in the making of my card.

I really like how this colorful little card turned out and I can tell you that I'll be giving my Copics a bit of a rest now and then as more and more stamps are added to the WOW line.  I have seen a sneak peek of some of the ones that will be in the next release and I can tell you they are going to be FABULOUS!!  I want them all and can't wait to get my hands on them!

That's all I have for you today.  Please check out the WOW Blog and Facebook page to see the wonderful projects of my talented teammates.  And iof you're going to CHA, be sure to stop by the WOW booth and see their wonderful work in person.  You will be totally amazed at the versatility of these powders and stamps.  They'll help you take your paper crafting to a whole new level!  So until next time...

WOW Embossing Powder colors used:

Tea Garden Green, Bay Area Blue, Earthtone Olive, Cable Car Red, California Sunshine, Earthtone Paprika, Earthtone Blueberry, Earthtone Grape, Metallic Gold Rich Pale Regular.

Happy crafting!
Anniebee


I am entering this card in the following challenges:

TBD