So very blessed...

Hi all! Hope your week is going wonderfully. 

So, Tim Holtz debuted the new color, Wilted Violet, at the beginning of this month, and I was absolutely in LOVE. If I have one complaint about the Distress line, it's that there are not enough "feminine" colors. (I'm a prissy girly-girl, what can I say?) The colors released this year, while absolutely stunning and definitely important holes to fill in the line, have been pretty darn masculine. This purple is simply gorgeous. It's so vibrant and cheerful, but while also being deep enough that you can easily create more muted tones overall depending on your technique. When I received my order from Vanessa, I decided to dive right in with some ink blending. I first noticed this technique when Betsy Veldman did it during one of the PTI releases, and it's one that I think packs quite a punch.

 I began by die-cutting one of the new scalloped ovals included in the Sweet Scallops die set from Avery Elle. I heat embossed that gorgeous sentiment from So Very Blessed on the oval, then used my blending tool and the Wilted Violet ink pad to create a deep purple halo around the sentiment. I purposely left the center of the oval lighter in color to draw attention to that beautiful calligraphic sentiment.

For the background of the card base, I decided I wanted to keep it simple and focus on that sweet little trio of roses from the sentiment. Since the sentiment stamp is all one piece (yay for not having to try to line up the laurels on both sides of the sentiment!), I turned to my Wplus9 Fresh Cut Containers stamp set to find a little hand-drawn rose image. There is a single rose image that I stamped in clusters of three to mimic the cluster of flowers on the sentiment, with the lighter, bottom layer stamped in Memento's Lulu Lavender and the top layer in the new Wilted Violet Distress ink. I added the little leaves in Hero Arts' Emerald Green ink. It still needed just a little something, so I added tiny, random gold dots with the tip of my gold Wink of Stella. Some pop dots under the scalloped oval added just enough dimension to finish it off. 

I hope you enjoyed this card! I have had a couple of large (ahem, HUGE) orders come in over the last few days, so I've been busy playing with everything. I will hopefully have some new, fun stuff to share with you tomorrow and Saturday! I also need to get started planning my kiddos' second birthday party.... How is it possible that they will be two in a little over 6 weeks?!?! Anyway, have a great Thursday, friends!