Hello there. No – it isn’t a flower in space. I have two cards – one floral and one galaxy/space – to share with you today. Two completely different cards. I have been missing my florals, even though I have been having messy and Distress Oxide fun.

This first card:

is quite a simple card – I think I might be getting there with this style – though it still scares me!

Having seen quite a few butterflies around the garden whilst I’ve off work the past few days, I took the Honey Doo ‘Butterfly Border‘ stamp and heat embossed into a piece of card using white embossing powder, then blended my Distress Oxides over it. The embossing resisted the colour. I used a couple of the orange and yellow oxides, to create a summer feel.

I then took the matching die and cut that out of a 6×6 inch piece of card, first working out where I wanted it to be, and ensuring I could match it up (!!) then adhered the stamped and inked piece behind it.

I was going to go with a coloured border around this piece, but I like just a slightly bigger white base instead, as I think more colour would detract from the main element.

The sentiment is from the Concord and 9th ‘Painted Rose’ die set. I love this font, and that the words are separate to place where ever you like. I die cut this twice in white card, then the third time was from another piece of card I used the same distress Oxides on, and layered them all together.

This card will be entered into the current challenge at The Paper Players – to use negative space on a clean and simple card, and the current challenge at Addicted to CAS – with the theme of Summertime.

This second card is completely different to enter the current challenge at Lil Red Wagon:

The current theme is to use anything to do with space, aliens planets etc. I did a few galaxy backgrounds – getting inky and messy again – then looked for my alien stamps. I started stamping and colouring these little creatures, before my sister reminded me they were monsters and not aliens, from Hero Arts ‘Monster Greetings‘ stamp and die set.

To me they are aliens, so I used my artistic license and carried on using them. I went for strong and vibrant colours with my Zigs, so they would stand out from the background, and then stamped and embossed the greeting in white, from another stamp set – I can’t remember what the name or make of this is.