Back to Work . . .

The long weekend went by way too fast and I'm not ready to go back to work in the morning, but I guess I will . . .  Between my being sick and also being on a break from work, Chloe the cutie puppy has been spoiled with all the time I've been home with her over the past week--she's in for a shock today when I leave her at home to go to work all day!  With the extra time off, I did get a bunch of cards done to share this week.  Here are my cards for the final two Viva la Verve sketches for the month of May.  I made a thank you card that's going out in the mail today and a graduation card to keep in my stash.

First up is a feminine floral thank you.  I used Verve's Kind Words set for the focal image.  To get the image to be two colors--purple for the flowers, green for the stems--I inked the image with tear drop shaped ink pads.  The image was stamped so that there was room at the top of the panel for a sentiment.  It took me a while to find a thank you one that was both elegant and small enough.  The "thanks" from the Circular Sayings set fit the bill--and the space!

I used a pretty floral patterned paper from an older Basic Grey collection for the cardfront's large panel.  I layered it on a piece of dark purple cardstock, then set it on a lighter purple card base. The patterned paper has a bunch of pink in it, so I used a piece of pink paper for the strip that runs across the cardfront.  Now that I look at the card again, I probably should have found a paper with a subtle pattern . . .

The image panel is matted on a light green circle and set on the card.  I added a little piece of knotted ribbon as an accent at the edge of the image panel.  The last thing I did was to dot on a teeny, tiny bit of Liquid Pearls at the center of each flower.  The knotted ribbon and the Liquid Pearls give  the card a few nice details while keeping the card mailable.

Materials Used:
Kind Words and Circular Sayings stamp sets (Verve Stamps); Memento Lulu Lavender and Pear Tart inks (Tsukineko); Pink Pirouette, Elegant Eggplant, Certainly Celery, and Whisper White cardstock (Stampin' Up!); Lovely Lavender cardstock (Gina K Designs); Euphoria 6x6 paper pad (Basic Gray); Sweet Blush satin ribbon (Papertrey Ink); White Opal Liquid Pearls (Ranger)

And, here's my card for this month's final sketch.  I made a clean and simple graduation card using colors from the current Dynamic Duos color challenge--Bashful Blue and Marina Mist.

I used a light blue striped patterned paper for the trio of panels on the Marina Mist card base.  The "dream big"sentiment from the Words of Wisdom set is layered over the panels. 

To accent the sentiment panel, I punched a trio of stars from shimmery silver cardstock.  I arranged them on the panel, using foam tape to attach the large star to add interest.  A Marina Mist ribbon tab on the right side of the panel balances out the design.

Materials Used:
Words of Wisdom stamp set (Verve Stamps); Marina Mist Classic ink, Bashful Blue, Marina Mist, and Whisper White cardstock, star punches, Marina Mist grosgrain ribbon (Stampin' Up!); shimmery silver paper (Recollections); Dots & Stripes-Candy Shoppe designer paper (Echo Park); foam tape