Friendship Blossoms

It's been a while since I did one of the SCS challenges and when I logged on and saw that this week's color challenge is Real Red, Basic Black and Gold in honor of the Chinese New Year, I couldn't resist. Although the design of the card, didn't really go with my doodling challenge, I still managed to sneak a little in. Today's card focuses on faux stitching. I usually do faux stitching freeform with a gel pen, mainly because I'm too lazy to pull out the ruler. This is what I did around the friendship square on this card. True faux stitching uses paper piercing, and that's what I did above and below the cherry blossom image. I used my Mat Pack to line up and pierce holes in a straight line, and then used the edge of the ruler to connect each hole using a gold gel pen. This gives a much truer stitched look.

I started this card by stamping the Rubber Stampede Cherry Blossom in VersaMark on Whisper White and heat embossing with black embossing powder. Next I colored in the blossoms with my Real Red marker. When I went to trim the image, the marker smudged! EEEEK! So I decided to sponge the entire layer with Real Red ink from my inkpad. Next I went back over all the branches with a gold gel pen and painted the flowers with a mixture of Real Red reinker and Crystal Effects. Matted on Basic Black, adden pop dots, then matted with Brushed Gold and Basic Black.

I stamped the Friendship stamp from Symbols of Solicitude in VersaMark on Brushed Gold and embossed with black and then matted on Basic Black and glued to the blossom panel. I then stamped Weathered background in VersaMark on a Real Red card base and embossed in black. The final touch was a ribbon tied around the card under the raised cherry blossom layer. Voila - Asian fusion.

To answer the question about what Cat's Pajamas stamps I bought... You can look forward to cards featuring Through the Shamrocks, Bold Happy Easter, Tree of Love, Kite, Lovebirds, Caldron, Party Hat, L'il Party Hat, Medium Whirlygig, Shaken not stirred, Fill er up, Wand, Small Whirlygig and Small Compass in the future