Love You, Mom

Who could resist Papertrey Ink's April Release? Not me. I received my order about a week ago and yesterday was the first chance I had to play with them. Well, maybe I should say I haven't dared to play with them 'til yesterday. That's because I'm a bit intimidated by how well some blogland friends have used them!

Normally when I make a card, I know exactly what I'm going to do before rubber hits ink but, in this case, I didn't even have a clue how I was going to use these sets when I bought them. This is the first time I'm actually 'playing' with stamps to get a feel for what they can do and what I can do with them. This card is far from perfect but I like how it looks and my mom certainly won't notice the imperfections so it's all good. ;)

This particular card uses Modern Basics, Grunge Me and My Hero, My Dad. I was inspired by the PDCC#79 colours of red, lime and grey but ended up adding yellow so I didn't link up to the challenge. I decided to try and make a custom flower from Modern Basics. I wanted to make a one-layer card but smudged the ink on the five-petal flower. I didn't want to waste the cardstock so I made another version on a separate piece of cardstock and fussy cut it. Then I stamped smaller flowers in different colours and sizes. I purposely adhered the layers off-centre toward the top right-hand corner of white space to draw the eye in that direction. Something had to balance out the large flower so I used various patterns from Grunge Me and My Hero, My Dad to create other greenery. I actually stamped off the yellow at the bottom because I didn't want it to compete too much with the flower itself. I extended the bird's legs but it ended up looking awkwardly long so I decided to create another leg as if it's walking but then I realized that birds' legs don't bend that way. Oops. Either way, it's still cute, right? I didn't have an appropriate sentiment so I created one using a couple of words from Modern Basics and hand-wrote 'Mom' except it ended up too small. When I rehearsed it, it was much larger! So there you have it. I played, I created and I made a lot of mistakes but, most importantly, I had fun and I learned a few things.

Sources: Gina K Designs 120lb pure luxury white cardstock; Papertrey Ink Modern Basics, Grunge Me & My Hero, My Dad; SU Basic Grey, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red & Summer Sun inks; SU Basic Rhinestones; Sharpie Fine Black Pen