Great Friend(s)

Here are my cards for this month’s first two Viva la Verve sketch/inspiration challenges. I used Verve’s new Great Friend set for both cards.

Here’s my card for the first week’s challenge. I was inspired by the colors and round, flower-like shapes on the wall in one of the inspiration photos. I used the smaller solid flower image from Verve’s new Great Friend set for the flowers on my image panel. They’re stamped on cream cardstock and cut out, then set on a cream panel using foam tape. A teal crystal is at the center of each flower for some sparkle. I used a stem image from the Believe set to complete the flowers. The “for you” sentiment from Great Friend is stamped at the bottom of the panel in teal ink.

I repeated the circle element on the card’s other panels. One uses a circle patterned paper and one has embossed dots. I ended up changing the sketch a little, leaving off the two small circle elements on either side of the image panel. Everything I tried looked wrong!

Materials Used:
Great Friend and Believe stamp sets (Verve Stamps); Taken with Teal and Crumb Cake Classic inks, Taken with Teal, Cool Caribbean, Crumb Cake, and Very Vanilla cardstock, Loves Me designer paper (Stampin’ Up!); Polka Dots embossing folder (Cuttlebug); teal rhinestones (Darice); foam tape

Here’s my card for week two. I was inspired by the patterns and colors on these zinnia plates from Anthropologie. I incorporated some of the colors and a bold flower into my design.

The card has a bunch of layers, but is still very clean and simple. I stamped one of the solid flower images in red ink at the upper left corner of a white panel. The flower was stamped a second time on a scrap of white cardstock so I could cut out one of the flower’s layers and attach it to the other image using foam tape. I dotted silver Liquid Pearls on the flower for shine and dimension.

The rest of the card is very simple. After matting the image panel on a black mat, I layered it on to the cardfront over a pair of red and gray strips. I stamped the set’s “just because” sentiment in black ink on a gray scrap and set that on the card, over the bottom of the image panel. A knotted scrap of red ribbon at the end of the sentiment panel completes the card.

Materials Used:
Great Friend stamp set (Verve Stamps); Riding Hood Red Classic ink, Riding Hood Red, Basic Gray, Basic Black, and Whisper White cardstock (Stampin’ Up!); Tuxedo Black ink (Memento); Silver Pearl Liquid Pearls (Ranger); red grosgrain ribbon (Michaels); foam tape