Blossoms Abound

Just over a week ago I found this  lilac, two step stamp set on Ebay and fell in love with it on sight. 
But this set was for sale in the USA.
After some deliberation  over the cost of the stamp set, postage and possibly  import duty,   I decided  I would buy it.

It's called Blossoms Abound and it's a retired Stampin' Up set.  I believe it was retired in 2008 so it is quite an old stamp set.

 Anyway, it arrived at lunchtime today,  just as I was going back to work.  Which meant I'd have to wait to have a play with this set.

 I got my chance to play this evening after dinner and walking the dogs. This  what I came up with.




I found this stamp set a little different to work with. Normally i would stamp the blossoms before stamping the stalks and leaves.

With this set, it's easier to stamp the stalk and leaves first.  But you do need to plan where to position the stalks  carefully to allow enough space for the blossoms.

The colours I used for the stem and leaves  were ;
Always Artichoke and Old Olive,
Lovely Lilac and Concord Crush for the blossoms.
Unfortunately both of these colours have been retired. 

I think, I left a little too much space between the blossoms on this card. So I filled in the stark white areas with some splatter marks using the splatter stamp from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set with Crumb  Cake  and Lovely  Lilac ink.

I also used the Honeycomb stamp from Butterfly Basics and Crumb Cake ink to fill in any  remaining blank spaces.

Once I had finished the card I still had the desire to keep on playing with this set so I made a couple of simple book marks.


The sentiment is from the Perfectly Penned stamp set.
Which I think has also been retired.







The Butterfly die is also from S U and is  still available from S.U.
I cut three Butterflies one in silver, one in purple and one in white.

I sponged the edges of the white butterfly with Lovely Lilac ink and applied glue to the bodies only and stacked the butterflies on top of each other.

To give the wings a little lift,  I cut a few sticky foam pads into small strips about 2mm wide and stuck them between the wings as  close to the body as possible so they cannot be seen.