Happy Watercolour Meets Gorgeous Grunge

I'm hoping for a super-efficient day today: the dinner is already prepared and in the slow cooker, I've managed a few admin tasks and I'm getting my blog post in nice and early before I crack on with more creating and ticking a few more things off my ever-growing 'to do' list - I love days like this! Today I'm sharing two versions of essentially the same card - you'll see why shortly!

I loved the colours over at CAS Colours and Sketches this week and had a specific card in mind that I thought would also work for the challenge over at Less is More, where the challenge is One Layer cards featuring Spring flowers. So here are the CAS colours this week:

These colours reminded my of iris, a spring flower that we are starting to see in bloom now; I decided to use the orchid stamp from the Happy Watercolour set for my card (an iris is a type of orchid, right?!) because I needed to be able to create something abstract without any green and the stamps in this set are perfect for this. So here is my one layer card:

Instead of using one of the watercolour pieces to colour the flowers, I decided the bold colours needed something different so used one of the Gorgeous Grunge 'splodge' stamps instead; I saw something similar at a recent training event by Laura Mackie and decided this stamp would work nicely with the bold colour scheme. The splodges look random, but are perfectly placed: with the aid of my Stamp-a-ma-jig, it was easy to get the correct placement that I wanted.  I then finished off with the 'happy' sentiment from the Happy Watercolour set - I love the font on this stamp. Having made this one layer card, I then decided to 'step it up' a little - here is my second card:

This time I layered on a base of Perfect Plum and finished the sentiment with some co-ordinating Candy Dots, rounding one corner of the white layer with my Envelope Punch Board. Some subtle additions, but they give the card quite a different look I think. I like both of these cards  - which one do you prefer?

The 'Happy Watercolour' stamp set will feature in my classes on 28th and 30th April - if you live in Northampton and would like to join me to make some beautiful cards using this set, please get in touch for more information and to book your place. You can find my full class schedule here.

Right, I'm off to get inky! Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Happy Watercolor	Gorgeous Grunge	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad	Elegant Eggplant Classic Stampin' Pad	Perfect Plum Classic Stampin' Pad
Perfect Plum A4 Card Stock	Regals Candy Dots	Stamp-A-Ma-Jig	Whisper White A4 Card Stock	Envelope Punch Board
Jet Black Stazon Pad	Stazon Cleaner