Welcome to my crafty blog. I’m back with another card that can be used for someone going through difficult times, and there are sadly too many of them at present. I’ve used the hydrangea from Stampin Up!’s ‘Beautiful Friendship’ set, and went for a blue colour scheme. Hydrangeas come in a gorgeous range of lilacs, purples & blues, through to pinks and greens, and apparently their colour depends a lot on the type of soil they are planted in. Acid soils will result in blue flowers, and alkaline soils give pink ones.

The design was inspired by this week’s sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches (http://www.freshlymadesketches.blogspot.com), and I was delighted to have been one of the top picks for last week’s challenge for my ‘funky house’ card – thank you Linda and the team! Here’s the link to that post if you haven’t seen it: Clarity Crafternoon – funky house NDC #74

So, on to today’s card. I started with a square of white card and stamped the hydrangea into opposite corners using Artistry Ink in ‘Ocean Reef’. At this point, I realised that I might not have space for a sentiment if I just carried on with the flowers and leaves, so stamped that next before going any further. I used the sentiment from the SU ‘Lasting Lily’ stamp set with ‘watering can’ Archival ink.

I then carried on stamping the hydrangeas into the other corners, and added the leaves using Artistry ink in ‘elegant emerald’, so that the square card was filled.

I edged the topper with a black Sharpie, and then mounted a piece of blue card behind it (slightly narrower and longer than the square), before attaching it to a 6×6 card blank.

Having been so careful to get the sentiment positioned on the topper, I now realised that the design has the sentiment sat below it! Fortunately the ‘Lasting Lily’ set had a co-ordinating phrase in the sentiments so I added ‘today and always’ directly onto the card blank along the edge of the blue card.

Job done! I discovered that hydrangeas have a number of different meanings attributed to them, but one of them is that they signify honest and heartfelt emotions. Just what I needed for this card.