The Greetery {Sending Hugs and Kisses}

I've got Valentine's Day on my mind today and wanted to create a few cards using some of the cutest new products from the latest release from The Greetery! I absolutely adore the new BotaniCuts Strawberries Die and the Curio: Confections Die so I decided to bring the two together for these sweet and delicious looking Valentine's Day cards! Have your orders arrived? Hopefully so, and here is some fresh  inspiration for you! 

I wanted to keep the layout very simple to highlight these sweet confections; almost like a countertop with these chocolate delights laying out, ready to be eaten.

To begin, I die cut the chocolate "liners" from vellum and set them aside. Next, I die cut all of the chocolates and swirls from white cardstock. After that, I die cut all of the strawberry pieces twice; one for each card. I started coloring the foliage for the strawberries first, starting with Mowed Lawn Distress Oxide ink and then adding the darker Rustic Wilderness ink for contrast. The berries are colored using Festive Berries and Aged Mahogany. I also added some of the Mowed Lawn ink to the highlighted portion with a touch of Abandoned Coral over the top to dilute the intensity of the green. I only used the amount of green ink that was left over on the finger dauber rather than adding any additional ink.

The flowers were simply left white with yellow colored pencil detail added to the centers. Finally, it was time to ink up the chocolate confections. I kept some on the milk chocolate spectrum and others made their way to the dark chocolate side of things. I really like the contrast in browns to keep it interesting and realistic looking. I used the Strawberry Bits on the majority of the chocolates, but a few have Heart Bits as well. It's fun to create these one-of-a-kind confections!

The background was created by cutting a panel of white cardstock measuring 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inches. It's hard to see in the photos, but I stamped the panels using the Fond of Foliage Background and Sweet Blush ink. I kept it very light because I didn't want it to compete with the business of the chocolates and strawberries, ESPECIALLY because I didn't plan on using any additional layers.

I added the border detail by die cutting the stamped panels using the Nordic Frames die. I stamped the "Happy Valentine's Day" sentiment directly on the background panel using Ground Espresso Distress Oxide ink.

I also stamped the "Sending Hugs and Kisses" sentiment, which is from the Sentiment Suite: Love Stamp Set, in the same brown ink onto Sweet Blush cardstock and die cut it using the Sentiment Suite Love Stamp Set. I forgot to mention that on one set of foliage, I added colored pencil detail, which you can really see in this photo. There is a definite difference between the two sets of leaves! I think I need to go back and add the detail to the other card now! ha ha! I added a sprinkling of glitter to each of the cards and mounted the panels onto top-folding A2 Pure Poppy card bases. Thanks for fluttering by!