MM5: Big, Bold Hugs and Small, Delicate Flowers

Hello! Hope it was a good Mother's Day for everyone. I know first hand that this can be a bittersweet day. If yesterday brought similar feelings, I hope you took good care of yourself. As for me, I am forever thankful for my mom's love.... on Mother's Day and throughout the year.

#smalldelicateflowers

 

My favorite flowers of all are lilies of the valley. I think I'm drawn to them because they are so understated. They hide under their lush leaves -- staying low to the ground. But, when you take the time to bend down and look under those leaves... Well, you are treated to the sweetest little flowers.  :)

Lucky for me, our master gardener (aka my hubby) has the greenest of thumbs. We have literally hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of this plant on our property. A little bouquet of these beauties in a special wedding-gift crystal vase is the perfect adornment for our dinette table.  :)

 

Big, Bold Hugs

 

Did you see that the current Shopping Our Stash challenge is SOS #200? And, in honor of this big milestone, SOS is hosting a big, bold, and beautiful challenge. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to break in some new Winnie & Walter goodies -- as if I really need an excuse to do that! 

 

Canson watercolor; Stampin' Up! black core cardstock
Distress Inks: pickled raspberry, peacock feathers, seedless preserves
inks applied with Ranger blending tool using Scotch removable tape
Winnie & Walter "hugs" cutaway from big, bold, friends cutaways set
Glossy Accents, applied to add shine to sentiment
adhesives: Scotch ATG; Zig 2-way glue pem
 

In keeping with the big and bold elements of the challenge, I decided to ink up some big and bold DI colors to create stripes of various sizes.

 

I used removable tape to tape off one stripe at a time, progressing across the paper from left to right.  (And, if you haven't ever used removable tape, I highly recommend checking it out!)

 

 

I taped down the edges of a piece of watercolor paper on a gridded mat.
Then I used the grid to line up tape for each stripe.
When applying ink, I placed a sheet of blank cardstock on either side of the taped-off stripe.

I used a different pair of papers for all three of the inks.
The pickled raspberry papers are shown in the middle.
Seedless preserves and peacock feathers papers are shown on either side.

The sentiment itself is 3-paper thick. Then, it has a coat of Glossy Accents to add a little extra sheen.

So, how do you apply Glossy Accents to such a tiny piece -- and have it dry without sticking to something else? Well, my solution was to make a stand by folding a thin strip of paper in half several times and place the sentiment on top of this make-shift, folded-paper stand.

This actually worked pretty well. But, I'd love to hear of other solutions for this delicate task.  :)

The current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog Challenge is all about sentiments. Think I'll link this card up there, too.  :)

 

Parting Thoughts

 

I need to set aside a little time this week to finish up the OWH cards I worked on in Hilton Head. Haven't sent in a box in the two months. Gotta get these cards to Sandy!

May Challenge
Say Cheese!
May 1 - May 28

Our May Words 2 Scrap By challenge is Say Cheese in honor of National Photography Month. This month, our challenge is going to run for four weeks -- through May 28. Hope you will join our I-Team as we commemorate those photo-worthy events in our lives.  :)

Have a good week! As always, thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!