Happy Thursday, friends!! I am over on the Honey Bee Blog today!!! I am stretching the oldie-but-goodie Lotus Blossom stamp to create this birthday card. It seems that spring is actually on its way this week in the Midwest…it can’t come quickly enough for me!! So, I used some bright, springy colors…

I began by stamping the Lotus Blossom stamp and a couple of leaf images from the Zen Floral set several times onto Bristol paper with Versamark Ink, then heat embossing with white embossing powder. The flowers and leaves were colored with Zig Clean Color Markers, then cut out with the Lotus Blossom Honey Cut and Zen Floral Honey Cut coordinating dies. I played around with the arrangement of the die-cuts and once I had them the way I liked them, used Press N Seal to pick up the flowers. For the background, I used the “smooshing” technique with Distress Inks on Bristol paper. The largest die in the A2 Double Stitched Frames Honey Cut set was used to cut a frame from light blue cardstock. Once the background panel was dry, the frame was adhered flat to the panel; while the floral arrangement was popped up with foam adhesive. For the sentiment, “birthday” was cut from light blue & black cardstock with the Hooray Day Honey Cuts. The “happy”, from Be-You-Tiful Sentiments, was heat embossed with white embossing powder onto a strip of black cardstock. Both the sentiment strip and die-cut were also adhered with…you guessed it, more foam adhesive…lol. Clear Iris Sequins were scattered around the flowers, for the perfect amount of sparkle. I love how these sequins match the background, but add just the right amount of shine!!

Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope I have inspired you to pull out those smaller stamp sets!!

Have a great weekend!!