Back in my Hawaiian Garden!

Aloha, all!

After 10 days away from Hawaii, I am SOOOO glad to be back and enjoying my husband’s gorgeous Hawaiian garden.  While the back woods of Northern Minnesota were definitely stimulating (had to be with 3 young grandchildren around!), there is just nothing like a garden in paradise, with all the bright and bold colors, not to mention all the varieties of green.

And, within an hour of my return, my favorite FedEx truck pulled into our driveway with my first box of new Stampin’ Up! catalog "stuff."  The good news is that my Craft Room looks out on two views of the garden; so I had the best of both worlds! 

But what to do with all these gorgeous new products!?  Well, after two days in airports and airplanes, I didn’t last long enough last night to get past that first question.  And then, this morning, the Stamping 411 gals came to my rescue with their Saturday Sketch Challenge!  Here is the challenge sketch.

My take on the challenge uses two brand new products from the Stampin’ Up! 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalog:  The new Butterfly Punch, and one of the sheets from the Designer Series Paper, Cottage Wall.  A long time ago, one of my favorite Stampin’ Up! colors was Orchid Opulence.  With this new paper, I think it’s about to get back into the favorite category again.

To make the larger butterfly in the lower right corner, I first stamped an image from the Flight of the Butterfly stamp set on Orchid Opulence card stock using VersaMark.  I then embossed the image using White Stampin’ Emboss powder.  After I used the new Butterfly Punch to cut it out, I trimmed the image close to the stamped dots.  Then I punched a scrap of Old Olive cardstock with the Butterfly Punch, layered them together, and attached them to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals.  To add a bit more interest, I stamped another image from the Flight of Butterfly set using Orchid Opulence ink on Whisper White card stock, trimmed it up, and attached it near the center of the DSP.  The accent ribbon is Old Olive 1/4" Grosgrain Ribbon.

Of course, I had to take the photo out on our lanai near the front garden.  It is SOOO good to be back!

I’ll be sharing more of my new goodies with you during the coming week.  I’m going to try to get as much done in the next few days as possible, because our new puppy (well, he’s a year old) arrives on Tuesday, and all bets are off for awhile after that :).

Here’s a close up of today’s card.  Note that there’s just a 1/16" sliver of a mat of Old Olive cardstock between the Orchid Opulence card base and the Cottage Wall designer paper.  It’s a nice touch that the Stamping 411 challenge encouraged.