Sami Stamps - Spring Flowers Release!

TGIF!!!!
Chilly this morning...but I'll take it since this past week has been so incredibly gorgeous and it's only going to get better!  The snow is almost all gone, leaving behind giant puddles everywhere :)  It has been so nice to throw open the slider door each morning and just let the fresh air in!

We have just the perfect release for you today at Sami Stamps!  The new release is Spring Flowers and will just have you longing to get into your garden and pray for those beauties to start popping up!
I loved this release so much, that I requested 3 images to work with...I couldn't get enough of them!
(Warning...long post...maybe grab a snack before you start :) )

For my first card, I've used the image Spring Branch:

 I've been on a bit of a quest lately to branch out my supplies and skills and try new things.  There have been some victories...and some major fails...but I've stuck with the challenge.  While I really love using my simple colored pencils, I have sort of fallen in love with the whole watercolor idea and wanted to try out the watercolor pencils.  Instead of spending way more money than I have on a full set, I decided to just purchase a few pencils to try them out and see if they were something I would want to use.  With this card/image in mind, I picked up a few of the Derwent Inktense pencils from our local art supply store...and fell in love with them!  Oh man where they a dream to color with!

I just love how softly the colors smoothed out over the image.  Definitely will be adding more of those to my wish list!  I paired my flowers with a sweet sentiment from Create with TLC and followed the sketch that we have for our April challenge at Sami Stamps (more on that below).

I would like to enter this Spring Branch card into the following challenges:
    Deep Ocean #74-For a Friend
    Work it Wednesday-Spring

My next card uses the Poppies Bunch image:

I mulled over this one for a long time.  My original plan was to combine this image with another one, but the layout never worked, and I couldn't find the right theme or papers to put it all together, so I canned that idea and started over...and decided to take a more elegant look to the card.

This black background paper has been hoarded in my stash for so long now...I love the pattern and the elegance of it all, and didn't want to use all of it since it's my last piece...but it called to me when I pulled it out of the pile and I knew I had to use it.  The scallop frame was cut with my Silhouette, and then I trimmed down some silver glitter paper and some black card stock to create a frame, so the image would sit down inside, not on top of those mats like normal.

The image has been printed a few times so that I could cut out the different petals and layer them all up for some fun dimension on the flower within it's frame.

Then came the work on the ribbon and buckle.  I didn't want to just layer 2 ribbons together and be done...I wanted it to really pop, so I pulled apart some twine to get just the white part and tied that into a bow, which was then woven through the buckle along with the rest of the ribbon layers.  Trimmed some black ribbon so that they criss-crossed through the buckle, but made sure the twine loops wrapped around into the front.  It took a lot of fiddling to get it just right, but I just love how it turned out!

I would like to enter this Poppies Bunch card into the following challenges:
    The Corrosive Challenge #196-Show us Your Metal
    Crafty Cardmakers #113-You've Been Framed
    Crafty Catz #225-Springtime

Ok, my last card uses the Red Rose image:

I have been trying so hard lately to make more clean and simple cards.  I love them, love how they can be simple yet striking...and a lot of people I know love simpler/flatter cards.  So I challenged myself to take our sketch and work it into a clean and simple card...and it worked!

I adore this card so much!  The blue watercolor along the side was supposed to be a bit more ombre, but it didn't wash down quite as nicely as I wanted...but that's okay cuz it still looks cool :)

For the stamped details, I raided my stamp bin and pulled out a set that I've had forever, stamped the dot stripe and sentiments and then clear embossed them so that they would resist the watercolor and pop through.  Before I added my image, I took a shimmer mist and sprayed the crap out of the card so now when held in the light, it has this awesome shimmer to it.  Plus it added the fun water marks to the blue along the side :)

The image was printed off and colored with my ShinHans markers, then cut out and foam mounted to the card.  Love love love it!

I'd like to enter this Red Rose card into the following challenges:
    A Creative Romance-Spring Flowers
    Loves Rubberstamps #97-Anything Goes
    Stampin for the Weekend-Spring Colors

I know this was an extremely long post...did you make it through?  If so, thanks for sticking it out!
Have you used Inktense pencils before?  The one thing I'm struggling with is when I print my image and use the pencils, the image lines smear...do you know of any way to prevent that?  Maybe it's just how my printer prints...and I have to just deal with it...but tips would be nice :)

Ok, now go check out Sami Stamps to see all the gorgeous creations with this new release, and be sure to join in our sketch challenge this month following this sketch:

Thanks for stopping by!!! <3