Sending Blossoms of Love

March 7, 2026 susanfoxbowenLeave a comment

Welcome to the weekend, everyone! It’s a rainy Saturday here in North Texas. And while I have lots of things on the outside spring to-do list, the indoor activities won out today. I started the day providing music for a funeral and then spent the afternoon at the kiddo’s Academic Pentathlon district meet, where he placed individually in Literature and then took several medals with his team. And before hitting the home to-do list, I’ve stolen a little time in the craft room to bring some of my own sunshine to this overall dreary day.

This week, we’ve been letting spring inspire our designs. And today is all about the gorgeous Lovely & Beautiful patterned paper, along with a few other things from the crafty stash, and a sketch as we create this beautiful encouragement card.

Because I’ve got a list of things to do, I wanted to create a beautiful card but without a lot of time spent on designing from the ground up. And what helps the most in those situations? For me, sketches are a must! So we’re using #719 by the Freshly Made Sketches team to make quick work of today’s card.

We get started with a base of Fresh Freesia cardstock. A sheet of the small floral pattern from the Lovely & Beautiful paper pack serves as our background pattern. A strip of Fresh Freesia helps break up our busy patterned background and we spruce it up just a touch by machine embossing our strip with the Beautiful Patterns embossing folder. From a scrap of one of the larger floral patterned sheets from the Lovely & Beautiful pack, I cut a gorgeous peony and adhered it on the left with dimensionals. The sentiment from the Fabulous Sayings stamp set is stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed in gold before being diecut with the Nested Essentials banner die using the extension method to get it just the right size. The vellum sentiment panel is adhered over the flower with mini glue dots. We finish things off with some pearlized faceted gems for just a touch of twinkle.

There are so many more beautiful spring florals in the current Stampin’ Up! lineup that I think we’re going to continue it for one more week. Do you have any current floral-y favorites you’d like to see? Maybe they’re in my stash. Drop me some suggestions in the comments! Until then, see you next week.

Product List

Fresh Freesia 8 1/2" X 11" Cardstock

[155613]

$14.00

Lovely & Beautiful 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Designer Series Paper

[166957]

$16.50

Vellum 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Paper

[167099]

$10.00

Beautiful Pattern 3 D Embossing Folder

[167097]

$10.50

Fabulous Sayings Photopolymer Stamp Set (English)

[167972]

$5.00

Versamark Pad

[102283]

$9.50

Metallics Wow! Embossing Powder

[165678]

$21.00

Nested Essentials Dies

[161597]

$34.00

Pearlized Faceted Circles

[166978]

$8.00

Mini Glue Dots

[103683]

$7.25

Mini Stampin' Dimensionals

[144108]

$4.25

Add All to Cart

Sketchy Fridays: Birthday Blossoms

March 6, 2026 susanfoxbowenLeave a comment

Happy Friday! We have made it to the end of the week. And it was quite an exciting day for me. In the middle of a big work meeting today, we had a medical emergency. There’s nothing like someone crumpling in their chair to get the ol’ adrenaline pumping! Luckily, we could rouse the person and get them on their way for a medical evaluation pretty quickly. And on top of the excitement of the work day, it seems that the weather in our area is ramping up to make for an exciting evening. I hope it turns out to just be rain. I’m not sure my poor heart can handle anymore crazy adrenaline rushes today.

But on to our crafty fun for today. We are having another Sketchy Friday (even more appropriate than I originally intended!). For those of you who are new here, Sketchy Fridays is a weekly series where we use a card sketch to design our featured card.

This week’s card is based on the Freshly Made Sketches #722 sketch. A sketch like this one is the perfect way to use busy patterns and/or scraps. In our case, we’re doing both!

We get started on today’s card with a base of white cardstock. Since we’re using a lot of pattern, we want a nice neutral backdrop. A sheet of the Easter Joy pattern paper serves as our background. For the three diagonal corner strips, we combine the floral foil from the Pleasant Patterns pack, the pink sheet from Garden Textures, and the small floral foiled sheet from the Lovely & Beautiful pack. The two competing floral patterns are broken up with the solid textured sheet from Garden Textures. I wanted all of our fun patterns to show through, so the sentiment from the Fabulous Sayings set is stamped on vellum in Versamark and then heat embossed in gold. Before adhering our sentiment, we add a few floral bunches on either side from the Easter Time ephemera pack and then adhere the sentiment over them with glue dots. We finish things off with some pearlized faceted circles.

Product List

Basic White 8 1/2" X 11" Cardstock

[166780]

$14.00

Easter Joy 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Designer Series Paper

[166939]

$16.50

Pleasant Patterns 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Designer Series Paper

[166950]

$10.00

Lovely & Beautiful 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Designer Series Paper

[166957]

$16.50

Garden Textures 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Foil Sheets

[167125]

$10.50

Vellum 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 Cm) Specialty Paper

[167099]

$10.00

Fabulous Sayings Photopolymer Stamp Set (English)

[167972]

$5.00

Easter Time Mix & Match Ephemera Pack

[166984]

$7.00

Versamark Pad

[102283]

$9.50

Metallics Wow! Embossing Powder

[165678]

$21.00

Pearlized Faceted Circles

[166978]

$8.00

Mini Glue Dots

[103683]

$7.25

Add All to Cart

Botanicals · January Mini Catalog

You Can Do Anything

January 24, 2026 susanfoxbowenLeave a comment

Happy Saturday, crafty friends! It’s a cold and icy day here in North Texas, just as the weathermen predicted. The kiddo has had fun sliding down the steep driveway, and I’ve puttered around sweeping off the porch and setting up makeshift shelters for the cat food bowls and temporary potty box so our (very spoiled) outside cats don’t have to leave the back porch. Hubby made us all a big breakfast and we’ve been enjoying loafing around since, which leaves me time to play in the craft room!

I got a brand new box of goodies earlier this week that I’ve been dying to take out and make some projects. Today, I decided to make another project with the new Lovely & Beautiful patterned paper pack and Fabulous Sentiments Product of the Month stamp set. I flipped through my trusty fun fold template book put together by fellow demo Jackie Bolhuis over at Klompen Stampers to source the card layout.

So this design gets started with a quarter panel of Blackberry Bliss cardstock. I love the contrast that this small panel provides and the stability it lends to the overall card design. Our folding panel is a sheet of Fresh Freesia that is scored to give us a tick-smaller standard quarter panel in the center section. The top and bottom flaps of our folded section then open to reveal the inside message panel of our card. I chose a sheet of the smaller foiled floral pattern paper from the Lovely & Beautiful paper pack as the patterned sheet for the card front panels. The top fold is just slightly larger than the bottom so that it overlaps slightly, and so we build our overhanging focal panel on the top panel. Our focal section gets started with a scrap of Blackberry Bliss cut with the Nested Essentials die. The sentiment from the January Product of the Month Fabulous Sayings stamp set is stamped in Fresh Freesia on white cardstock and then cut with paper snips. The sentiment is adhered over a bow of white & gold ribbon with dimensionals onto the Blackberry Bliss panel. This panel is adhered to the bottom of the top flap with dimensionals. A flower and leaves from the Covered in Flowers accents serve as our floral accents, and they’re colored with small blending brushes using Fresh Freesia and Mossy Meadow before being covered with Wink of Stella. They’re tucked behind the sentiment and adhered with a combination of dimensionals and glue dots. I added a gold drusy embellishment as the flower center to coordinate with the foiled paper and added a group of In Color pearls on the sentiment panel for a pop of twinkly color contrast to draw the eye to the sentiment.

I’m planning to bring you some more designs this weekend. I hope you’ll drop back by and see what I have in store for you!

Product List