Purple Tulips....

.....or tulips in any color are typically some of the first flowers to start blooming in our area.   They are also one of my favorite flowers and I love seeing them popping up in the garden.  It's still too early here, but it won't be long now, plus you can readily find them "in bloom" at your local garden center!

     Today I'm creating my own little form of "Spring" in my cards and my first card today, was inspired by a wonderful floral card that Vicki created at this's week's MUSE over at the Muse Challenge Blog.   I'm so excited to have a card for this week, because I have missed out for the last two challenges and it's a favorite!!    I'll start by sharing Vicki's card and hope it may inspire you to create and play along too!!

Vicki's Card

My Card

      Clearly we both using much different stamps and colors, but I loved her basic design and the idea of adding a nice ribbon to the top of the card.   My card features two stamps from Hero Arts.  The first this gorgeous floral stamp, "Everything Flowers", which is one of the large cling background stamps from my Hero Stash.  The sentiment is from the "Truly Appreciated" and is one I have used often.   For my card I started by masking of the top portion of my card front, so I could easily stamp on the bottom only.  I then took a variety of pink and purple Tombow and Stampin' Up markers and colored directly onto the stamp and then spritzed it with a very light mist of water right before I stamped.  Once it was dry, I stamped on my Sentiment, and then using Vicki's idea of  "coloring and popping" up one of the greetings I chose the work YOU and re-stamped that in the same pink color I had used for my flower.  My final step was to add my bow...and please know, I'm still challenged whenever I try to add a bow to my card.  Even with my little bow maker, they never seem to look as wonderful as they should.  Look at Vicki's for example - now that is an awesome bow!!   Mine....well let's just say, I'm not giving up, I will continue to try to learn to make fabulous bows!!  

    My next card is again another challenge card and I was also happy to see that I still had time to get this one created and added before the challenge ended.  It's for the current "Sketch" challenge over at Reverse Confetti, which you'll find HERE!!   I'm also sharing a copy of the "SFYTT" (Sketch for your to Try), and again hope you will join me and give it a try!  

Sketch # 11

My Card

   I didn't even notice, until now that the colors I used on my card, are also very much like the sketch, but that was just one of those things and was not planned.   Pretty much all the papers and even the card base that I used, were ALL on my desk or in my scrap bin, making it very easy to put this together!!    I do love these bright vibrant colors and also think the sketch was a fun one to work with.   I used two of my RC Dies, Tag Me, along with this Scalloped Border, which I also love.    The sentiment is also from Reverse Confetti and has become one of my most used Sentiment Sets, I just love the fonts and they also stamp very well.  

  And that bring me to my last card of the day, which is the card that actually inspired the title of today's post.  It's another Spring inspired card and I used one of my favorite new Penny Black Stamps for this one.   I know you've seen it before, but I simply LOVE it!!   This stamp is called Promise and it's such a pretty image of three pretty tulips!

   As I did on my first card today, I used my water-based markers (Tombows and Stampin' Up) markers and colored directly onto my stamp.  Right before I stamped my image, I added a very light mist of water and quickly stamped it onto white cardstock.  Watercolor paper works very nicely too, but this was on my desk already, so it was fast and easy.  Once my image dried I used a circle die to cut it out and then created a matching frame one size larger.  My card base was created with more of the scraps and pieces of cardstock on my desk.  The textured/glittery piece behind the flowers was created using a Woodgrain stamp (Hero Arts) and stamping it with "Sticky Embossing Powder", which I quickly covered with some Purple Glitter embossing powder.   It's not a vibrant as I hoped, but is a fun way to add texture!!  My sweet little sentiment stamp is one I found on my last trip to my LSS.  It's by Impression Obsession and is perfect for any type of spring floral card!  

   And that is it for today, but before I go I want to remind everyone to please be sure to stop by on Monday, for the very special Card Drive/Blog Hop that I have joined to support the "Fight on Little Lauryn" Fundraising and Card drive!   You can read all about Lauryn and her battle with Leukemia on my earlier blog post HERE!   There will be some nice prizes along the hop and if you come by here, I'll have my own Blog Candy to Giveaway too!!    

The Hop Starts HERE!!