Time Worn Roses

Good morning! Today I have a card for you that I made last weekend when I was working through all of the inspiration I found at Amy Sheffer's blog Pickled Paper Designs. I tell you, she makes the most beautiful cards and I am absolutely in LOVE with the square format. I am having a real hard time going back to standard A2 size! So much more area to work with when you are using a square canvas. Well anywhoo, I flat out copied two of her designs and then thought I should probably see if I could come up with something on my own. Gotta trust your own creativity too right? I was also working out ideas for my Mother-in Law's birthday card. I'd promised Rich (my hubby) that he would have a couple of options to choose from for his mom's card so this was one of the choices.

The card base is Bayou Blue cut 10-1/2 x 5-1/4 and folded in half and then layered on a 5-1/4 square of Not Quite Navy. Layered on the card front are one 5 inch square piece of Porcelain Prints DSP and three pieces coordinating smaller pieces of the same DSP pack. All of these pieces are first stitched on my sewing machine and then inked around the edges with Basic Gray ink. You can use up a lot of scraps of paper this way. Just pick three pieces that coordinate and don't completely cover the face of your card.I was fairly heavy handed with the sponging because once I had that done I sanded and distressed the edges, crumpled a couple of corners etc. I attached one of the ribbon clasps from my aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware kit to the right edge of my largest designer paper piece and then adhered them all to my card front. Once I had the designer paper pieces placed, I set the card aside and went to work on the flowers. The Regal Rose set has been discontinued for quite a while, but it's such a lovely detailed set I don't have the heart to part with it. The flowers- two small and one large- are all stamped with stamped-off Blue Bayou, and then detail stamped with Not Quite Navy. The leaves are from DD Hydrangea (also retired darn it) and stamped the same way with Wild Wasabi. (base is stamped off, detail is full color.) Once I had all these pieces cut out, I sponged and distressed the edges the attached dimensionals to the large flower. The verse is from Quotes to Live By and is stamped in Not Quite Navy on Very Vanilla and then sponged around the edges. I added a couple brads to the lower corners for a little added interest.

Now for the assembly! Since the backgound DSP was already in place all I needed to do was arrange my flowers and the verse. The verse went down first so I could arrange the flowers and leaves around it. Next I adhered the smaller flowers and the leaves directly to the card, and finally added the largest flower in the center making sure my little metal clasp didn't get completely buried. To finish it off I tied two small pieces of ribbon to the clasp.