When I first bought Circle of Friendship, I used it all the time. But it has probably sat untouched, feeling very neglected since before Christmas! Sometimes I feel like a very bad steward of all my stamping wealth. I have so many stamps that don't get the attention they deserve! :(
I made this card for this week's Sketch Challenge on SCS. The papers are from the new K & Company Happy Trails collection I picked up at Michael's last weekend. I just love the groovy mixture of rich colors and patterns in this collection. I started by cutting out all the pieces for the sketch. I don't normally do layout first, but I had no idea what I felt like stamping, so I started with paper! I glued everything together, except the main image panel and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the Textile embossing folder. Next I inked it up with Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink.
By this time I had decided that I wanted to use my Hero Arts Doodle Leaf flower and paper piece it. So I stamped the flower and then cut out and adhered the petals from 3 different papers. That looked a little bare, so I cut out more petals and glued them from the very center. Ah... better. Next I stamped the Doodle This swirly thing around the edges of the square in Ancient Page Coal Black. I stamped The Circle of Friendship stamp, punched out with my 1" circle punch and attached it as the center of the flower with a brad from Impress. I then adhered the image panel to the cardfront with foam squares and matted the whole thing on a Chocolate Chip card base. I wrapped some May Arts ribbon I got from Beate (Thanks Beate! I love it!) around the card and tied in a not. The final touch was some paper piercing across the top and bottom of the horizontal panel and Stardust Stickles accents on the flower petals and the swirls.