Best of Stampin’ Up!

Aloha, all!

     Did you know that this year – Stampin' Up!'s 25th anniversary year – Stampin' Up! is selling a new set of stamps every month showcasing their "Best of (add theme name)"?  So far there have been six stamp sets in the "Best of" series, and today I'm showing off a stamp from two of them.  And, of course, I opened another package of Designer Series Papers (DSP) as I promised I'd do.  I'll be doing this until I've opened every set of papers and used it at least once over the next couple of weeks.

     First let me tell you about the sketch for this card.  It's Mary Jo Price-Williams' Monday Lunchtime Sketch Challenge for the week.  I really have wanted to focus on my papers and stamp sets to make sure I get them all out and functioning, and sketches that others do have helped me along with this.  Now, I love coming up with my own sketches.  But it's a lot more time-consuming than using someone else's, and I'd like to save the time right now!

     Now onto the papers and stamps in the card!  The paper is from the lovely Gingham Garden DSP Set.  Yes, there is gingham paper in this set.  But there are also flowers and other patterns, including the floral design that forms the background for this card and a design made up of plain and scalloped stripes that's the middle of the strip across the card.  Behind that strip is yet a third design from the DSP set, though I am not showing off the best part of it.  There are rows and rows of lovely flowers on this piece of paper.  But what caught my eye was the nice shade of the Melon Mambo background for those flowers.  Yes, there is a piece that has a Melon Mambo focus, but I thought that piece wasn't quite dark enough for my purposes with this card.

     The most fun I had with this card was finding out that two of the "Best of" stamp sets had exactly what I wanted to finish off the card.  The sentiment is from the set, Best of Greetings, which is the newest set.  The flower that I punched with the 1-1/4" Circle Punch is from the March set, Best of Flowers.  The designs in these sets are mostly from past Stampin' Up! catalogs, though they're smaller than the original stamps.  Each stamp set also has a brand new "never before seen" stamp. In fact my card uses a brand new stamp from the Best of Flowers set.  This flower is perfect for the 1-1/4" Scallop Circle punch; but I wanted a circle, so I punched a circle.  I stamped the flower with Melon Mambo Ink, and then filled it in using a Blender Pen to pick up color from the stamp pad.  I used the Daffodil Delight Stampin' Write Marker to fill in the center, and added a Daffodil Delight Candy Dot for a bit of color emphasis.

     I stamped the greeting using Island Indigo Ink, and matted different parts of the card with both Island Indigo and Melon Mambo Card Stock. 

     No ribbon this time – but I did have a bit of extra fun by lining the inside of the card with a piece of white paper for writing a note – it has a scalloped edge on the bottom and another stamped image of that fun flower!

     Thanks to Mary Jo for her creative sketches – don't be shy about going over there and entering her challenge yourself.  You'll have fun with it!!

 

.