blocks and bling

Remember several years ago when color blocking was all the rage in scrapbooking and cardmaking?  I decided to revisit that trend for today’s card.  Some scraps from my Basic Grey Blush 6″ x 6″ paper pad were wanting to be put to good use, so I pulled out my old Deluxe Cuts card colorblocking templates and chose this one to use.

Sorry the picture is kind of dark, but I tried several times and this was the only shot that didn’t have a horrible glare on it. 

Anyway, several of the Basic Grey scraps were the perfect size for some of the blocks in the template.  I had to cut the rest but that wasn’t difficult – I just traced the outline of the blocks on the back side of the paper so I’d know what size I needed.  

I stamped on the larger blocks with the solid pink background.  The way the sentiment turned out was kind of an example of turning an “oops” into a “creative opportunity.”  I originally wanted the words to be the same color as the swirls, but once I stamped the sentiment, it didn’t show up very well against the background.  So I decided to overstamp it with a darker color, slightly misaligned, and have the lighter color look like a shadow. I chose to use only a portion of the sentiment stamp partly because it didn’t all fit in the block and partly because I thought the first three words sounded good just by themselves.

The little flowers were another “creative opportunity.”  I didn’t have any Primas in any shade of blue close to anything that would coordinate with this card.  So I took some off-white ones, pressed them into the Baja Breeze ink pad to color them, and set them aside to dry for about 30 minutes before I adhered them to the card.  Ta-da… custom colored Primas!  After I added the rhinestones to the flower centers, I thought the right side of the card needed a little bling too so I stuck a few in the floral part of the stamped swirls.

So, here it is… blocks and bling.  I hope you like it. 

Supplies: 
Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Heard from the Heart (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Baja Breeze (SU); Adore, Be Mine, Cherish, Crush and Sweetie papers from Blush 6″ x 6″ paper pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip (SU)
Other: card colorblocking template 1-C (Deluxe Cuts); flowers (Prima); clear self-adhesive jewels (Bazzill)