Women of Life Cards (from Papertrey Ink)

In the days leading up to a new release of stamp sets at Papertrey Ink, projects are shown that showcase the upcoming stamps. This month it was PTI's 1st anniversary and lots of announcements were being made. One of which was that there were designers who created stamp sets. The designers showcased artwork using their stamp set. I fell in love with the projects (and therefore the stamps) shown by designer Melissa Bickford of the Just Dandy blog. The stamp set is called Women of Life. I used this set primarily because I was "inkspired" by her creations. I also used a stamp or two from Polka Dot Basics. If you check out the Just Dandy blog, you can see the cards she created that inspired me, as well as her directions. On some of the cards, I chose to make a standard sized card, as opposed to a square sized card.

I typed the descriptions first and then show the card.

For this first one, I also used my new Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder. Colors are Holiday Red, White and Black. (colors from Close To My Heart, as is the ribbon). This card was modified from the designer's because I prefer standard sized cards for mailing and also because I don't have the Nestabilities embossing shapes, which is what she used. I did cut a square out of white, edged it with Holiday Red ink, and then adhered it to a slightly larger white square to add some depth.
This next card uses Desert Sand and Indian Corn Blue, and White Daisy (CTMH). I cut the white flower with my Cricut, using the George and Basic Shapes cartridge. I inked the edges with ICB. Melissa used a silk/paper flower, but I didn't have one large enough. The brads are from my stash.

This next card uses Indian Corn Blue, Sweet Leaf and White. I stamped the flowers in white on the ICB cardstock and then used my white Souffle pen to add the dots. The centers are stamped using ICB ink. The ribbon is some I had in my stash...I think it was ribbon from a gift I received and the stick pin is from JoAnn's when they were on clearance last summer. Guess my ribbon is more wrinkled than I thought. Sorry about that!
This next card is 3 1/2 by 8. I used the Polka Dot Basics set to create the dots on the Sweet Leaf base. Very cool because I didn't have to try to line up or offset the dots, just the edge of the stamp and the randomness works perfectly. I popdotted the two larger flowers. I used my Making Memories tag maker to create the tag. Ribbon is Black Organdy from CTMH. The pink square is Hollyhock. The larger flowers are stamped with Hollyhock and the smaller ones with Vineyard Berry. (CTMH colors)
I modified this last one as well. It's now a standard sized card. I used Sweet Leaf, Blush and Baby Pink (CTMH colors) I pretty much followed what Melissa shows on her blog, with the exception of heat embossing. Well, I take that back. I TRIED heat embossing some pearlized embossing powder I had, but it didn't give enough of an iridescent look. So I took my glue pen and smeared glue over the embossing and added Prisma Glitter. You can't tell very well, but I stamped the flowers using Baby Pink and Blush ink. In her description of the card, Melissa shows how she uses her scallop scissors to create the mat. I tried it and it almost worked! She said that she adds a brad, button or flower to hide any messiness in the final cut. Guess who needed to add a flower? LOL I found that bauble center at Michaels today. They have bags of these colored rounded acrylic discs near the silk flower area. I've seen blogs where designers are using these "gemstones" and I thought they looked neat, so of course I had to hunt them down. After stamping and glittering, I used a micro tip black pen to add the dots.
Inside the card.
I had fun working with this set this afternoon! Thanks for visiting! Up next I'm going to post the layout I created yesterday and forgot to post....