"Blue" Hydrangeas

I found a new blog through reading Melissa Phillips' blog, Lilybean's Paperie (which is always wonderful!!), it's called In Pursuit of CraftYness. The contributors are the former design team of Paper Salon, and I'm sure you would recognize the names! Their first post says they plan on sharing challenges, providing tips and inspiration - sounds great!! The first challenge is a sketch challenge by Julia Sandvoss. It looked like a lot of fun so I gave it a try!

I pulled out my beautiful 3 Step Hydrangea set from Kitchen Sink Stamps (did you see the great 2 page write up in the current issue of Cards?! Yea Maria!!! and a beautiful card by fellow Crew Member Tammy Hershberger - yea!!). I stamped all the flowers, leaves and the vase and then cut it out and added it to my dp with some dimensionals. It took me a bit of time to figure out how to add the sentiment without covering anything up, but I love how this came out! The sentiment is from the other new KSS set, Whole Family. I used some great vintage buttons (been using those a lot!) and a pretty Melissa Frances architectual accent to balance the right side.

Ok, here's my button story I promised last week. Many of you know that we homeschool our children (well mostly 2 right now). For the past couple of weeks the Read Aloud book was In Grandma's Attic. Several of the chapters centered around a button box that Grandma has and how the button box has many stories associated with it. My girls loved these stories and of course wanted to know if I had a button box. I had almost forgotten about them but I do have 2 button tins that were passed on to me from older family members and friends (I'm sure they are both at least 50-60 years old if not older!). We spent at least an hour that night on the bed sorting through one of the button tins, wondering where things came from, finding matches and ooohhing and aaaahhhing over all the great buttons! It's been fun going through the tin and finding buttons to compliment my cards - what a great second (or third) life for these little pieces of history!!

I hope you all have a wonderful week - do something extra special to enjoy Spring! Thank you so much for visiting!! :)

Cardstock: Georgia Pacific Whte, dp is Basic Grey (Gypsy (Moonbeam) & Perhaps (Daphne)), Vellum paper, Stamps: 3 Step Hydrangea, Whole Family, Inks: Blush Blossom, Almost Amethyst, Lavendar Lace, Vintage Violet, Sweet Blush (PTI), Certainly Celery, Perfect Plum, Mellow Moss, Always Artichoke, Saraha Sand, Going Gray, Accessories: Buttons, Lace & Architectual embellishment (Melissa Frances), dimensionals, Nestabilities

P.S. Please email or leave a comment if you would like me to tell you exactly what order I stamped the hydrangeas in, I played around with the colors a lot to find my favorite mix! :)