Flowery Featured Stamper

Today's featured stamper challenge on SCS highlighted cindy_haffner/Cindy's gallery. Cindy's cards have amazing detail. She is a paper piercing expert, too. In addition to creating beautiful cards, Cindy is a frequent "commenter" on others' creations in their SCS galleries. The card I made today is based on Cindy's card here. I kept the layout and the color scheme the same, but changed some other features. She used Cuttlebug flower dies to create the flowers on her card. The flower images reminded me of the ones from Big Pieces, so I used those instead. Like Cindy, I used the polka dotted circle from Polka Dots and Petals for the centers of my flowers. I added dimensionals underneath them for a little pop.

I used two new tools to create the details on my card. My flower stems are made with faux stitching. I used a rotary paper piercer, Piercing Bug, by Cutter Bee instead of my regular paper piercing tool to make the holes since they didn't follow a straight line. I thought this would be quicker and ensure that the holes were evenly spaced (that's tricky for me without a template for a guide). I'm not wild about the size of the holes. They're kind of uneven, but hopefully with more practice and with a better pad under my work surface, I'll get better at using this tool.

The scalloped edge at the bottom of the card was made with another new tool. I bought a scalloped edge rotary cutter from the new Martha Stewart line at Michaels. This is another tool I'll need more practice with to use well! I am someone who can't draw a straight line, even with the help of a ruler, so cutting a straight line with a rotary cutter is a real challenge. The tool cut a nice scalloped edge, but I needed to use my scissors to finish some of the cuts. It is definitely easier than using the corner rounder to make a scalloped edge.

Materials Used:

From Stampin' Up!: Big Pieces, Polka Dots & Petals, and Blooming with Happiness stamp sets; Bravo Burgundy, Chocolate Chip, and Pretty in Pink Classic inks; Always Artichoke marker; Cranberry Crisp, Bravo Burgundy, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Blush Blossom, and Whisper White cardstock; mat pack and paper piercing tool; stampin' dimensionals; large oval punch

Other: 7/8" circle punch (EK Success); brown dotted organdy (Michaels); pink dotted organdy (Michaels); scalloped edge rotary cutter (Martha Stewart line at Michaels); single row Piercing Bug (Cutter Bee by EK Success)