Hello! Welcome to Kylie Bertucci’s Demonstrator Training Blog Hop for January. I’m part of a group of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators from around the world that participate in Kylie’s program for building our businesses. The theme for this year is thank you, to show appreciation to our customers and team. Please be sure to click on the names in the list at the end of this post to hop around and view the beautiful projects posted by so many talented stampers.

Today’s card features the Hydrangea Hill Suite in the new mini catalog. Purple is one of my favorite colors and it isn’t very often that Stampin’ Up! Designer Series Papers showcase the great purples available in the different color families. I also love flowers so this suite was a winning combination for me and was the first one I purchased as soon as the catalog went live!

I thought that the Double Z Fold would be a nice way to show off the 3D flower. Here is how I made the card.

• Card base – Cut a piece of Gorgeous Grape cardstock at 4 1/4″ x 11″. Score at 2 3/4″ and 5 1/2″, fold and sharply crease with a bone folder.
• Designer Series Paper for card base – cut one piece at 4″ x 5 1/4″ and one piece at 2 1/2″ x 4″ and adhere. I used the paper with the smaller all-over hydrangea design.
• Smaller card base – cut a piece of Seaside Spray cardstock at 3″ x 9″ and score at 3″ and 6″. Fold and crease sharply with a bone folder.
• Cut piece of the Seaside Spray DSP at 2 7/8″ x 2 7/8″ . Stamp “thank you” from the Hydrangea Haven stamp set with Gorgeous Grape in the bottom left corner.
• Die cut the leaf and stem piece with Old Olive cardstock using the die from the Hydrangea die set. Cut a piece of an adhesive sheet and adhere to the Old Olive cardstock before running through the die cutting machine. Adhere to Seaside Spray DSP.

• To make the 3D flower cut a 2 1/2″ square piece of Basic White cardstock. I used three colors of ink: Highland Heather, Misty Moonlight and Seaside Spray and applied them with a blending brush. I started with the Highland Heather, randomly dabbing the color on, making small circles, working from the center and going out to make a large circle. I repeated this step with the Seaside Spray and then filled in with accents of Highland Heather. I did first and second generation inking to produce the shading. I have a set of blender brushes in different sizes that I purchased at a scrapbooking show several years ago and I used one of the smaller brushes since I was working with a small piece. I don’t have our new brushes yet so I’m not sure how well this technique will work with the size of the SU brush. You can also use sponge daubers, which would work nicely for this technique.
• Once the inking is done run it through your die cutting machine using the solid flower die. To get the raised effect turn the piece to the back and use either the paper piercer end of the Take Your Pick tool or the point of the paper snips to poke the flowers out to the front. To fill the flower out more, cut a strip of Vellum Paper and use the long die with the blossoms to cut them out. Curl them with your fingertip, place a small drop of liquid glue in the center and randomly adhere to the flower. I used five of the blossoms.
• Adhere piece to the Seaside Spray DSP piece with Stampin’ Dimensionals. Add three of the Highland Heather Pastel Pearls. Adhere the DSP piece to the front of the smaller card base.

• For the inside of the smaller card base cut two pieces of Basic White cardstock at 2 3/4″ square. Stamp a greeting with Gorgeous Grape ink on one piece and adhere to inside of the card base. Stamp the smaller petal image with Seaside Spray ink in each of the four corners of the other piece and adhere to the middle section of the card base. Adhere smaller card base to the larger card base. When adhering the front make sure to only apply the adhesive to the left half of the piece in order for the card to open.