I think of myself as a very patient person. It helps to keep my stress level down and it’s especially helpful in my work as an elementary teacher. However, when it comes to purchasing something online and waiting for the package to arrive, I am about as patient as a spoiled child.
In fairness, it used to be that items shipped would arrive in a week, maybe less. That, I could handle. If you live in an urban area and you get your Amazon orders delivered by lunchtime, you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. But in the past year, UPS and USPS have given us country folk the shipping shaft. Everything takes two weeks to arrive! And one carrier is no better than the other. UPS only delivers here 3 days per week now, and one can’t trust the USPS tracking system. I recently purchased the Mini Blooms and Sprigs die set from the Spellbinders’ website. I placed the order on the 24th of February and I received it yesterday! For 6 days USPS could not update their tracking to show where my package was, other than to say it was “arriving late”. That was 14 days of waaaaaiting.
The good thing about having this set come on a Saturday is that I could spend all afternoon playing around with it! I first die cut several of each flower out of white card stock and then the stem and sprig out of several shades of green. I shaded the flowers with Ranger distress inks in Worn Lipstick and Spun Sugar with a blending brush. I knew I wanted to create a center piece that had a sentiment with greenery above and below, but there was a bit of trial and error getting it to look the way I wanted. The green strip in the center is cut from a die in the Everyday Details set from Stampin Up.
The card base is 5.5 x 4.25 and the white layer is only slightly smaller. I adhered the center strip along with its sentiment and the greenery with liquid glue, and used foam adhesive for the flowers and for attaching the white layer to the card base. Lastly, I embellished with some colored gems. I love the way the colors look together! I’m thinking I’ll use this for an upcoming retirement later this spring.
Today I made a Mother’s Day card using more of the pieces I cut yesterday. This time I used Copic markers to color the blooms. I added the flowers to a wreath stamped in Ranger’s Green Fern archival ink and fussy cut around the outside. The sentiment is from a Lawn Fawn set I borrowed from a dear and amazingly talented crafty friend. I am in love with that green ribbon! If I were to redo this one, I would use a basket weave embossing folder on the bottom half of the card. It wasn’t until I looked at the photo again that I realized how naked it looks without any embellishments! 😂 I’ll have to back and add a little something.
Thanks for stopping by! It’s beginning to feel a bit like spring despite today’s 6 inches of snow. I’m ready for all the flowery cards! Come back soon to check them out!
