I have another card for the spring flower challenges. Seize the Birthday's Optional Twist is Spring, and Simon Says Work it Wednesday's challenge is Spring Flowers.

I've had a lot of fun imagining spring while making these cards. Hopefully, spring will soon no longer be a figment of my imagination!

The image is Papertrey Ink's Bold Blossoms on watercolor paper. They were colored with Altenew's 36 Pan Watercolors–my favorite for watercoloring flowers. The paints are so vibrant.

The sentiment was stamped and die cut with Papertrey Ink's "Penned Elegance."

After the watercolor dried, I added some depth to the flowers with Polychromos colored pencils, and added some white gel pen to the stamens. The final touch was a few black pearls.

This card took a bit more time than usual, but I did all the coloring and fussy cutting while watching the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament this weekend. I missed most of the two games my team (UConn) played as we were out to dinner Friday night, and at a Lunch & Learn event at church yesterday. I did catch the end of both games. Yesterday's was particularly exciting, and UConn advanced to the Final Four. I'm likely to miss both the Semi-Finals and the Finals because I'm headed to Washington, D.C. for Ecumenical Advocacy Days. I've never been before, and I'm looking forward to it. There are seven of us from our Presbytery headed there on Thursday. I'm also looking forward to seeing some real Spring there. We got a rather harsh (in my opinion) April Fool's joke this morning, waking up to 2" of freshly fallen snow. (More on that to come in the next post.)

At any rate, here's a toast to Spring via Hero Arts January Card Kit. I was inspired by two things: first this post by Vikki, and then by the Inspired By Challenge this time: Windows.

It's hard to see in any of the photos, but I fussy cut the window from the Flower Shop and backed it with acetate to mimic a real window. The Flower Shop was die cut from Simon Says "Fog" cardstock, and adhered to a Weathervane (PTI) card base.  I restamped the awning onto X-Press Blending paper, colored it with Copics, and fussy cut it before adding it to the shop with dimensional tape. All the flowers and containers were also stamped on X-Press and colored with a variety of Copic markers.

You can see a slight reflection on the acetate at this angle. The sentiment is a fave from Papertrey's "Birthday Bash" set. 

I decided not to use any dimensional tape with the flowers as there were so many individual pieces that I didn't think it needed anything else.

I'm linking this card to these challenges:

Inspired By . . . 

Seize the Birthday with an optional twist of SPRING . . . 

Simon Says Work It Wednesday: Spring Flowers . . .

And last, but not least, Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes . . .

Hope Spring has shown up where you live!

Butterflies seem to be on the mind of people choosing card challenges this week. I love butterflies and have several sets that would work for either of these challenges, but this is what I've come up with. First off, the Time Out Challenge. It's a photo challenge, but the image in the photo that caught my eye was the large butterfly painting over the couch. As soon as I saw it I had an idea for the challenge.

A close look at the photo shows a butterfly in grays and blacks with very interesting gold framing. Although I've used Papertrey Ink's "Butterfly Folk" in the past, I've never used this (quite large) image before. 

I stamped it in black on Simon Says Fog cardstock, one of my favorite grays. Then I placed one of Altenews "Fine Frames" die cut in gold behind it.

The sentiment is from Simon Says "Let's Party." Finally, I thought it needed just a bit of sparkle so I added some gold rhinestones.

The next card is for the CAS(E) this Sketch challenge.

This time I reached for another Papertrey Ink set, "Life is Beautiful." 

I stamped the butterfly on Tim Holtz watercolor paper with my MISTI. It took multiple stampings to get a sharp black image. I then watercolored it with Altenew's 36 pan watercolor set (still sitting on a table in my craft room since our return from Wisconsin," and die cut it with the coordinating die.

I couldn't decide what to use for the border in the sketch, but settled on a thin strip of patterned paper from Sunny Studio's "Striped Silly" paper pad which I backed with a piece of black cardstock as well as a very thin piece of cardstock down the center. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Birthday Bash" set, a set I return to over and over again.

I used some three-dimensional tape to attach the butterfly, and pulled its wings up a bit. This is probably a card that would be better hand-delivered than sent through the mail.

The Time Out Challenge is celebrating their 5th birthday. I'm late to the party, but just in time with a birthday card to celebrate.

I'm sharing another card with a watercolored panel I worked on while we were away. This time it's Papertrey Ink's "Peonies on Parade."

The beautiful peonies were watercolored with Altenew's 36 pan watercolor set.  

I used a combination of pinks, orange, and reds and love the way the colors blend into one another using a wet-on-wet technique. The sentiment is from Papertrey's "Penned Elegance." The only embellishment was the addition of a few black pearls.

I did add a bit of dimension by using a black Glaze pen on the center of the peonies. 

While we were in Wisconsin, I watercolored some images for cards. As usual, the first few days after returning from a trip were very busy, but finally while I watched the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship games last night, I had time to put the images to good use. I have one to share today for three challenges. The first is The Flower Challenge where "Anything Goes" is the theme.

The second is for AAA Cards. The challenge there this time is One Image plus an Optional Twist of Spring. We awoke to another fresh coat of snow, so despite the encouraging forecasts the only sign of spring is right here in my craft room. 

And, finally for Less is More where the challenge is "Take Three." Although there are three main blossoms in the cluster, it is just one image, not several that have been masked, so I think it works for both the AAA Card challenge as well as Less is More. 

The image is from Papertrey Ink, "Bold Blossoms" that was printed on watercolor paper. I used Altenew's 36 pan watercolor set which is perfect for traveling as well as having great colors for flowers. That's no surprise since Altenew excels in creating beautiful floral stamp sets. 

The sentiment is also from Papertrey Ink. I love the "Penned Elegance" stamps and dies. Before I owned a set of the dies, I borrowed them from a friend and stamped and die cut a bunch of them. They were in my stash just waiting for the right occasion, and this was it.

To qualify for the AAA Card Challenge, no embellishments can be added. I did die cut the panel with the large rectangle from W+9's "Gift Card Layers" die, and added a few white dots to the flower centers with a Signo broad white pen. I'm hoping that doesn't disqualify the card from the challenge.

Here's hoping I'll soon be able to post some photographs of spring flowers!