Cherries

 A good friend of mine was born at cherry time. Or, at the time when the cherries used to ripen; now they are ripe much earlier (courtesy of global warming). So "of course" there needed to be cherries on her birthday card.

Good fruit and berry stamps are hard to find. I am not keen on juvenile berries, those are galore... I am looking for more naturalistic looking fruit and berries and finally found a good one. (Hero Arts' Layered cherries)

I started by color blending the entire background.

Then I stamped a bit of noise, barely visible.

Lastly I stamped some leaves in one of the background colors and adhered the cherries as the focal point. The cherries - my goodness did some work go into them. Color layering means you get to stamp it four times instead of just two. The bottom layer was stamped with dark green and brown Versafine pigment ink, then embossed with clear embossing powder. Then came the second layer of stamping, this was done in Oxides. The cherries received one more layer with patches of red and pink embossing powders.

Entering this in:

A Blog Named Hero: Smooth

Stamping Sensations: June challenge bright and colorful

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Emboss it

Alphabet Challenge: F is for fruit

 As You Like It: With or without words (and why) - the type of card I am making (semi-clean) does somehow need a text to look complete. I suppose with mixed media cards I wouldn't do it. But yes, my cards are with words so they already spell out the occasion and I can concentrate on writing something personal on the inside.

And because this was the first time using these two stamps I am showing it in NBUS (Never before used schtuff) #63