Welcome to my crafty blog. I’ve been struggling to work out how best to use the ‘hydrangea haven’ set from Stampin’ Up! and decided today was the day I’d get over it! I’d looked at a few cards online and thought it could work quite well with this week’s sketch layout over at The Paper Players

I started by stamping the flower head in ‘aqua fusion’ Artistry Ink (I masked off the leaves each time I inked the stamp) to cover a piece of white card that I’d trimmed to be slightly smaller than a 5×7 card blank. I then used a brush to blend the ink over the stamped images, to soften the white card.

Next was to die cut an oval of white card and then stamp the hydrangea onto it. I used ‘aqua fusion’ again for the flowerhead and ‘avocado’ for the leaves & stem outline. As the Artistry ink pad are small squares I was able to do this all directly onto the stamp. I also stamped the flower head onto a separate small piece of white card, and then inked it with ‘aqua fusion’ and the infill stamp, before using the flower die to cut it out. This is a great 3D die, which partly cuts the individual flowers out as well, so you get more dimension to the image. I used the infill stamp to colour the stem and leaves with ‘dry weed’ ink, and then glued the die cut onto the flower.

To complete the card, I ran a strip of olive ribbon across the background piece before attaching it to the card blank. I don’t use ribbon on my cards anywhere near as much as I used to, and I’ve got a large box of supplies still so it was good to use at least one piece of it. I then attached the oval topper to sit across the ribbon. I stamped and die cut the sentiment using the ‘art gallery set’ and popped it onto foam pads to sit below the oval. I used another bit of the ribbon to add a bow (that’s two pieces used!)

I finished by adding three green gems around the top of the oval, just to balance the card out.

Regular readers of my blog won’t be surprised to know that I’ve done a bit of research into hydrangeas whilst writing this blog. I wanted to know what type of hydrangea this one might be. The common ones seen in the UK are mophead (with large round flowerheads) and lacecap (with flatter heads), which are both originally native to Japan. On reading further though, I think this one is a smooth hydrangea which is native to the US – unsurprising really as Stampin’ Up! is an American company. Here’s some photos – the blue one is a mophead and the white one is a smooth hydrangea. What do you think?