French Foliage goes feminine

After yesterday's very masculine post I thought I'd show you a feminine gift set that I made for a lovely friend of mine:

I'd bought her the gorgeous white and green hydrangea you can see on the left of the photo and I thought the delicate colouring was so pretty I made it the theme for the set. Come and see the card:

I used the waste from my Little Leaves die to sponge this leaf image onto the card front using Wild wasabi ink. The frame was then measured out and drawn in with a Basic Grey marker. I masked the inside area off and sponged a border with Pear Pizzazz ink, overstamping it with the lovely leaf from French Foliage.

If I zoom in a bit here, you can see that I added a little detail to the leaves with a green watercolour pencil and used a grey one to outline the frame. I find this gives a lot of dimension to what is essentially a one layer card. I love the Stampin' Up watercolour pencils and use them a lot. Have you noticed the flowers? They're made with the four-petal flower from the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack - my favourite flower punch in the whole world!

The sentiment is stamped in Basic Grey ink and is brand spanking new! This is a sneaky peek from the new catalogue (which goes live on Saturday!) but I can tell you that it's from the most useful set I've ever seen in my life!

My friend has a very slim build and I've always admired her tiny, elegant wrists. I found the perfect bracelet for her and popped it in this little box made with the last of my Springtime Vintage papers and tied up with the softly draping Rose Red seam binding ribbon.

You know how I like everything to coordinate - well here's the matching tag! I used the inside part of the Little Leaves die this time, gluing it to a Vanilla circle matted onto a Wild Wasabi one, and adding more of those gorgeous little flowers.

Supplies needed for the card:

Stamps: French Foliage, sentiment not yet released!

Ink: Wild Wasabi, Pear Pizzazz, Basic Grey

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Whisper White (for the flowers)

Other: Little Leaves die, markers, watercolour pencils, stamp-a-majig.

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. Click here to view the Last Chance List - full of stamps and accessories, some at up to 40% off! These items are available only while stocks last - and some have sold out already!

To celebrate my friend's birthday, a group of us went out to a local restaurant. All was well until the proprietor, retrieving the menus after taking our order, asked us whether we were there for any special occasion. Oh yes, we told him happily, indicating our friend, we were celebrating a birthday! We were then quite startled - and the birthday girl completely horrified! - when he delivered a dramatic rendition of 'Happy Birthday' in a powerful baritone!

I'm so pleased you came to see me today! Thank you for all the comments and emails you send me and for following my blog - it means a great deal to me. I shall be back tomorrow with a card using a set I've been dying to ink up for ages - so do come and have a look if you have a minute.

Hope to see you then,