#simonhurley

It’s spring and all the beautiful flowers are beginning to bloom outside but our tried and true all season plants are still inside. House plants are the best…giving life in our living area. My mother had house plants all over as I was growing up. And this first card has another special meaning…

When my adult daughter was in fourth grade I was a parent volunteer on a trip to the career center for the area. One of the classrooms we visited was the Horticulture class. They had lots of plants they were growing and taking care of — especially the spider plants. We were each given a baby spider plant to take home with us. It was planted and well loved at home and my daughter and her three sisters each took a baby shoot off it to grow in their own home. Thirty years later, the plant offshoots are still going strong. So this is my favorite card!

Using the PROPAGATED PLANTS ETCHED DIES:

Cut several of the wide spread dies from lighter and darker shades of green – ink blend on them if you would like. I did a little but my paper was iridescent so it doesn’t show a lot in the picture.
Cut some roots in a lighter shade of green or beige color.
Cut one (or two) of the leaf parts in pieces to create two smaller “babies” and attach roots.
Use patterned paper or leftover to create a vase. I cut my vase from a scrap of my watercolored embossed die of the month paper (see previous blog post).
Create a background — mine is on gray paper embossed with Simon Hurley’s 3D Embossing folder (I LOVE THIS DESIGN)
Splatter your background with some black ink and White Spatter. Please note: this white spatter is terrific but it doesn’t look like much when you first get it. It is mighty and just needs a bit of a stir and a little water to thin it and then tap your brush to splatter your surface.
Embellish as desired.

I chose to put this on a slim line card since the babies hang down from the parent plant. I used some twine to connect the parent plant with the baby plants.

The next two cards were really fun to make. The one on the left uses the String of Pearls dies and the right card uses the Bamboo and Monstera plant dies. Again I created vases from scraps of my watercolored embossed paper. The frames we lots of fun also. The one on the left looks difficult but if you follow directions online after cutting out all the pieces, it is really easy to put together.

The left background is from the Leafy Helix Embossing folder and on the right from the Tufted 3D Embossing folder.

The sentiments are all from the Propagation Garden Sentiments Stamp and Die set.

I just LOVE this co!! All of it reminds me of a great memories that are very special! Do you have memories of special plants from your past? Please share in the comments.

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Hugs, Penny

Supplies used below are listed with affiliated links that will be at no cost to you but may give me a commission if you purchase by clicking. Thanks for your support.

Do you want to add a bit of texture to the background of your card? Do you sew or stitch? Or not? Either way, this embossing folder works great in either the embossed or debossed side.

On a piece of Altenew watercolor paper I embossed the design with the folder. I want to practice and learn more with watercolors so I decided I would try a rainbow affect. With Altenew watercolor paints I first wet a row of the embossed design then added in some pigment going down in rainbow order. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it so I just went ROYGBIV overall and figured I’d go from there.

I tried lots of different ways to layout a design and finally took the Nestabilities Deckled Rectangles Etched dies and cut out a piece from the ROY part and from the GBIV part of the paper. Playing with it still, I dropped a random white die cut on it and thought — oooo, that white looks good on the darker GBIV piece. From Simon Hurley’s Floral Stems Etched dies I cut one of the long-stemmed flowers from white cardstock. To keep with the rainbow theme, I cut out a piece of holographic paper with the deckled rectangles also.

Now the layout was getting easier and easier to see how pieces would fit together.

For the first panel over the card base, I debossed a plain white card panel with 80# Neenah Solar white cardstock. This folder is great on both sides.

This was looking very bright and cheery so I thought it would make a great birthday card. The sentiment comes from the Thanks Enclosed set of dies. I cut it out 4 times and layered three of them. I added some glossy accents but didn’t like it so I just added the fourth die cut on top when the accents were still tacky and it became my glue.

With the white flower to the left of the Happy Birthday, popped up with foam squares, the layout and card was complete!

Sometimes it takes awhile to find what you like. Sometimes what you started with you don’t like. Yet, if you walk away and come back to it, it will take on a new life and is so much better than you expected. In the end, I really like this card but it did have to grow on me in fits and spurts. What do you think? Have you ever had that experience? Feel free to share with me on Facebook or Instagram your thoughts.

Thanks for visiting today. Please come back again.

HUGS, PENNY

Supplies listed below are affiliate links that if you click and purchase may give me a small commission but will be at no extra charge to you.