In a VERVE and a Hop!

Welcome to the first ever official Anni-VERVE-sary Blog Hop. Verve turns two today and we’re celebrating with a hop, hop, hop! The party kicked off over on the Verve blog, so if you’ve just happened along, be sure to hop on over there to start from the beginning! And to make this party a real shindig, there’s a mystery jackpot hidden at one of the stops along the hop. One lucky commenter on that blog will win Verve’s entire August release! But of course, it wouldn’t be a mystery if you knew which blog, would it? So if you’re feeling the love, give a little shout out to the bloggers in the hop and you just might have a reason to jump for joy! 
  This is my very first hop as well and I am so happy that you have clicked on to here to see what I have created with Julee's beautiful set Wishful Elegance and a very elegant single flower image! I will tell you that I so enjoyed making this card and love colouring the flowers in this set to truly customize my cards.  Here are the details and steps that I used to create this one.  I first stamped my floral images in SU Rose Red and coloured with Copic markers.  I am sorry that I didn't include the colours that I used, but let me say that I layered different colours to obtain the shades of green and pink to match the colors in this new Basic Grey "Lemonade" line.  All of the dp that I used in this card are from this new line.  After colouring them, I cut out and decided, after selecting the buttons that I wanted to use for the centers, that they needed a little "je ne sais quoi" so I had an idea that I wanted to encircle the buttons with some french knots.  I hadn't made these in decades and I remember as a teenaged girl that I loved embroidery floss and all the colour choices, so I went to the craft store and bought a bunch of fun colours.  I made the knots on the inside perimeter of the flower center and then adhered the buttons with mini dots.  I had the layout of the card in my head and covered the card base with the fun polka dot pattern from the pack and then cut a smaller green layer that I corner rounded.  Next was the top panel that I wanted to act as a frame and I cut it out with my Spellbinder Mega Curved Rectangle die and sponged the edges with a sponge dauber and SU Rose Red.  I then created some borders with two different MS border punches and layered them and then used the little narrow leftover strip of the dark berry colour paper to finish off the bottom part of my card.  The flowers needed a little framing/platform too and I cut out three shapes with the blossom Spellbinder die.  These three went on top of the bordered area and I placed the flowers onto a dimensional and then onto the blossom shape.  The last was the center sentiment and panel.  I stamped the sentiment with Memento Tuxedo Black directly onto a green paper, cut it out using my Spellbinder Labels Four die and sponged the edges with the SU Rose Red ink and a dauber.  I then cut out the next larger size in the same dark berry colour that I used in one of the borders.   Here is a close-up of the flowers with the embroidery floss french knots.  Thanks so much for looking!  I had a blast making this card and I am really looking forward to everyone's creations (later today as I have to go to work for 9 AM today, Saturday...boo hoo)  I am really looking forward to the next release from VERVE!   For the  next visit, hop over here to see Gretchen's creation!