In my thoughts

I'm on a quest to get some ink on the new sets that I haven't used yet. Stitching Garden was one of those "must-have" sets, but once I got it, I was too busy with other things! I decided to pull it out and experiment with it for today's cards. They are both similar, yet with a few differences that  I will talk about in today's post.

I really liked the way THIS card turned out, so I wanted to create something similar, but with the Stitching Garden set for the flowers. I also just adore the Window Works Dies! I used them the other day on THIS card. Actually, I made these two cards first, and then decided to make the Seahorse card. I knew that those little seahorses would look so sweet nestled into the window!

For these cards, I chose the circle and the square window openings for the two sentiments. One is stamped in Smokey Shadow ink and the other is heat embossed in gold. These particular sentiments are from the It's the Thought stamp set. I was anxious to use this one again so that I could take it out of the "new" basket and add it to the rest of my collection. I find that I need to use a set at least twice before I feel like it is etched in my mind and I won't catalog it and forget about it! LOL! I'm also going to do the same thing with these gorgeous florals because I don't think I could ever forget about them!

When I get a new set, I find it helpful to just sit down and stamp out all of the images! Actually, the first thing I do is to check the coordinating die cuts and see if they are the wired shapes or if they are solid. If they are the wired ones, then I just get to work doing the stamping. If they are the solid dies, I do the diecutting first and then start the stamping. Oftentimes sets may have both, so it is helpful to check when starting out. I love that you can see where you are diecutting your prestamped images with the wire dies.

This particular set has quite an assortment of images, leaves, and things. I didn't do the multiple step stamping on all of the images. I just had fun playing around. By the time I was done, I had quite an assortment of images. Some of the little greenery sprigs don't have dies, but it was fun to go in after I had the flowers arranged and just stamp them here and there as you can see in this photo. I might have gotten just a little bit carried away! LOL! Oh well....that is all part of getting to know a new set!

I added some clear Nuvo drops to the centers of the flowers and added a few gems here and there for some added interest. Both cards are spritzed heavily with sparkle Shimmer Spray. I'm so happy to have two "thinking of you" cards for my stash. I completely cleared that section out the other day when we went out delivering cookies! Thanks for fluttering by!