Punched Flower Tree -- A Doubledog Dare for YOU!!

Supplies used: Ink -- Mica Glass Metalic Effects, Versafine Black, Blue Bayou. Paper -- White, Cool Caribean, Black. Stamps -- Hero Arts "Trees, Birds & Messages" Clear Design; SU "Wonderful Favorites" and "En Francais". Accessories -- Mini Hydrangia punch, Small and Large Oval punch, Scrapworks Waxy Flax, Flower Punching Kit.

Our Doubledog Dare challenge this week was hosted by Charlene aka LilLuvsStampin! She dared us to make a card using punches, at least one background stamp, and NO DP!! Before I start on the deets of my card, I wanted to let you know the Doubledog Dares are now open to ANYONE!! We would LOVE to see your interpretation of our challenges!! Whenever you see any of the cards posted, the challenge info will be in the recipe of the card. Feel free to jump in and make a card for the Doubledog Dare Gallery. There's no time limit, just be sure to use "DDC" as one of your keywords so we can check out your work! This week's Doubledog Dare would be a GREAT one to start with!! Common and join us -- we don't bite!! The Doubledog Dare girls are: Julia aka Artystamper; Michelle aka SF9erfan; Joan Ervin; Charlene aka LilLuvsStampin; Bev aka Beestamper; Anne Harmon aka JDMommy; Joanne aka SleepyinSeattle; Francie G. ; and me! {smile} First, the background of this card is actually a leftover scrap from some experimenting I was doing with my new "Mica Glow Metallic Effects Ink" that I got from Judikins last weekend. It comes in re-inker bottles and you can paint directly to your stamps with them, or drip multiple colors of them onto a non-pourus surface and use your brayer to pick up the ink and transfer it to CS to make cool-i-oo-lio backgrounds like this one. The colors here are Rose Gold, Honeydew, Teal and Gold. They're very very shimmery IRL, but of course I couldn't capture that in the photo. But they are so pretty!! Next, I stamped the tree from the Hero Arts "Trees, Birds and Messages" Clear Design stamp set using Versafine Black ink. To meet the No-DP-and-use-a-background-stamp requirements, I stamped some scrap Summer Sun textured paper and Cool Caribbean CS in some darker shades of inks with the En Francais BG stamp. Then to meet the Use-at-least-one-punch requirement, I punched several Mini Hydrangeas from them and ran a marker along their edges to define the petals a bit. Next, I shaped them using my cool new stylus pen from my Punched Flowers kit by Punch Bunch. The kit is so awesome!! It comes with a "pen" that has a "claw" head, sort of, that allows you to change out tools to different sizes of stylus ends, or piercing needles or exacto knife blades. Very handy dandy. This may be one of my "Favorite Things" for 2009 this year! Anyhow, I "sewed" my little flowers onto the tree by first poking a hole through the centers of the flowers, all the way through the main panel using the cool pen tool -- changed out to a piercer head -- and threading some Pumpkin Spice Waxy Flax from Scrapworks through them. The Waxy Flax stays stiff enough so you don't need to use a needle to thread it through the little holes. I knotted the exposed end, pulled it through and taped the other end of the wax string down on the back side so it laid flat. Next, I made an oval sentiment tag by punching two ovals with the SU small and large Oval punches and stamped "Friend" from the SU "Wonderful Favorites" set onto the white oval. I sponged the edge a bit, added one more punched flower to it, and then layered the completed tag onto the main panel. The main panel is layered onto a black and then a Cool Caribbean CS layer. Here's pics of the tools I used -- these are all new goodies from the rubberstamp show I attended last weekend: First pic: Large acrylic mount with a handle (soooo nice for even-pressure stamping!), the Mini Hydrangea punch, bottles of Mica Gloss Metallic Ink. Second pic: Close-up of the awesome Punch Bunch Flower-Punch kit that I got from the Stamping Fools booth. It has a claw-tool with a rubber grip, 5 different sizes of stylus', a flower shaper (the white tool in the middle of the kit), 3 different piercing heads (one is round, one is square and one is triangle), a pair of tweezers, and a tube of 3 different exacto knife blades. It's all the tools you need to make your life easier when making punched paper flowers. (I'll be posting more on those later..!!) I so enjoyed making this one!!! Hope you like it! Sweet Dreams everyone! Anne