So many people say to me “Where do you get your ideas from?“
I am inspired by lots of different things. Sometimes I draw inspiration from colour challenges or sketch challenges. Sometimes I browse the idea book & catalogue and adapt…..or there may have been a card that I seen that really grabs my attention and I make my own variation of it using different colours or different stamp sets. Most of the time I just pull things out and move them around until I like the way they look. Generally I try to make things my own- even if I am following a sketch I tend to tweak it and change it to make it my own.
I find people are interested in the process I go through- so I thought I would show you step-by-step. Please feel free to make your own cards like this but bear in mind that in the process I learnt that there are many ways you could adapt the size and design to suit your needs. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend using the measurements I used for the card which I will explain as I go through the steps I followed.
I made a card for my Mum for Mother’s Day- A flower pot card. I had seen other examples of flower pot cards like this so the concept is not my original idea but without a template to follow I just set about making one and hoped for the best.
Most cards I make start out as 1/2 an A4 sheet of paper ….. Either cut in half along the shortest side OR cut lengthways. The reason I start with this size is that when folded it makes a card that fits nicely into Stampin’ Up!s C6 envelopes. In this case I cut lengthways into a piece of Chocolate chip cardstock
But……….. by the time I added the flowers the card didn’t fit into a C6 envelope so in hindsight I could have made the base part smaller (so that when finished it would fit into the envelope)
If I am not posting a card I will sometimes give the recipient their card without an envelope so if I wasn’t bothered about whether the finished product fitted in an envelope, alternatively I could have made the same type of lengthways cut into the A4 cardstock but made the cut wider so that the pot base was wider and would have fitted a larger strip of cardstock inside. Hmm! I’m probably not making sense, please read on and hopefully this will make more sense soon! (I did warn you that I am explaining the ‘process’ I go through! 
)
Anyway, I then scored and folded this piece of cardstock in half. On the fold I measured in 2.5 cm (1 inch) on both sides. I marked a point and cut from that point until the edge of the open end.
This what it looked like closed…….
and open…..
This chocolate chip base was to form the flower pot but it seemd to be too tall. I could have cut the top off a little but instead I opted to score the edges at about 2.5cm (1 inch) and folded the edges over creating a ‘rim’ on the pot. As you can see in the photo below I create a score line using the bone folder and the tracking on the Paper cutter (page 155).
I then used a technique that Nicki Tidbold shared at Convention. I must warn you it is a very technical technique- nah just kidding- It is such a simple idea that Nicki called “Thump and Bump“. You literally pick up the ink pad and hold using the finger grips and thump and bump the ink pad all over the cardstock. Nicki recommended this as a simple but effective technique for male cards or layouts.
In this case I thought it would also look very effective to use one of the background stamps such as “Weathered” or “Sanded” (page 109) but I didn’t have one of those on hand at the time.
To seal the sides of the flower pot base I used Sticky strip. (page 154) This is a heavy double-sided tape that is wonderful for assembling things like boxes as the sticky strip holds a good grip! Very durable stuff!
I thought that the flower pot looked a little plain- so I used the Eyelet Border Punch (pg 153) to punch an edge of Kiwi kiss cardstock. I then trimmed this strip so that it was the same size as the rim on the flower pot.
I then set about stamping the flowers for the top of the flowerpot. I used “Petal Pizazz” (page 98) but other sets that would work include
- Eastern Blooms (pg 76)
- A beautiful thing (pg 76),
- Flower Fancy (pg 80)
- Fifth Avenue Floral (pg 82)
- Embrace Life (pg 83)
- Scribble This (page 84)
- Playful petals (pg 86)
- Pick a petal (pg 96)
Alternatively the Flower Fusion Felt Flowers (page 144) would also look lovely (especially if you used a smaller flower pot base) or also the flowers from the Pretties Kit (pg 149)
I used the in-colours Pacific Point, Tango Tangerine and Riding Hood Red stamped on Whisper white cardstock. I find that with large bold stamps like this it is best to make sure that you “Smoosh” the pads gently into the ink pads and then tap gently on top of the ink pad to get a nice even coverage of ink. I also tend to hold the stamps in place a little longer than I might normally to allow the ink to transfer well to the whisper white cardstock. After stamping I then cut out the flowers using my paper snips.
I was hoping to achieve a more decorative look so stamped some more flowers and used the circle punches to cut out circles to use as centres on the flowers
Even this didn’t seem enough so I added some dazzling diamonds glitter and fine supernova glitter (page 145) to the flower centres using 2 way glue (pg 154)
I also added some doodling using the white Uni-ball gel pen (ph 156) on the main flowers. I was inspired by the Planter Box Rub-ons on page 139 which features a doodled section which look great on the largest flower from Petal Pizzazz but I wouldn’t have had enough rub-ons in the pack so used the white gel pen to create the same design instead.
I then set about using Stampin’ dimensionals (page 154) to assemble the parts of the flowers and to stick the flowers onto a strip of Kiwi Kiss cardstock that would go inside the flower pot.
As you can see the strip of Kiwi Kiss cardstock is only about 3 or 4cm wide. This strip is the part that goes inside the flower pot and is the part I planned to write my greetings on. When it came time to write on the strip I had to turned it sideways and also write on the back of the strip. If YOU were to make the same type of card I would recommend making this strip wider and shorter OR adjusting the size of the pot to make it wider to accommodate a wider strip. If your message was short and sweet then the strip would probably be fine too!
As I was making this for Mother’s Day I wanted to add the “Happy Mother’s Day” Sentiment from the Occasional Greetings Set. (page 112) This card could just as easily be made into a Thank you or birthday card by using a different sentiment.
I had originally considered adding my sentiment to the Flower pot base but couldn’t get it to look right so I added it to the section where the flowers were. I found that when trying to add the sentiment it ‘need something more’ so I used the Eyelet Border Punch to create decorative corners on the sentiment. The following picture shows how I positioned the cardstock to achieve the decorative corner.
To finish off the card I added a piece of Ric Rac from the Pigtails Ribbon orginals pack (page 150)
and this is the end product!
If I can help you out with ordering supplies to make a card like this- please do not hestitate to get in touch with me! I can’t wait to hear from you! E-mail miriamthomas@westnet.com.au OR Phone (08) 90917655 or Mobile 0419 947 047 . You can view the catalogue by clicking on the catalogue cover on the right hand side. Alternatively I can pop a copy in the post for you for only $12.95.
