Martha Stewart Punches

I’m sure you all know that feeling of coming home from a craft shop with an impulse buy and a slight feeling of “oh my gosh, will I ever actually use that”.  Well with the exception of the odd corner rounder,  I don’t really ‘do’ punches very much, so why is it I seem to have brought a whole load home in my suitcase?

Is it the cute packaging?  The fact they are designed square so they all line up neatly together?  Is it in fact Lynn’s fault for giving me a Martha Stewart Punch shopping list, thus making me look at them in the first place?

Well, whatever the reason, I fell for them and offered them a loving home.  (These should soon be available in the UK, by the way).  So as I was unpacking the important stuff yesterday, I decided that these fell into the category of purchases that would sit at the back of the shelf and never get used if I didn’t do something with them straight away.

So I picked the hydrangea petal punch and set to work.  I found a sheet of pastel rainbow cardstock and began punching from the pink/ lilac/blue area of the card.

I then dug out a piece of funky foam and using two layers together, rubbed a large ball tool in the middle of each of the flowers to curl them up slightly.

I cut a scalloped circle (Nestabilities – coming soon to Graphicus by popular demand, and about time too!) and started sticking down the larger flowers.  I had inked the edges of the larger flowers, but decided that was far too fiddly, so abandoned that plan.  In fact, at this stage, I was wondering if I had been attacked by some strange form of jetlag I’d not encountered before, as all this fiddly, tiny stuff is just not me at all.

Anyway, I carried on and built up the flower head and was surprised at how quickly it all went together.  Adrian shouted through that dinner was ready, so I quickly spritzed on some Glimmer Mist and left it to dry while I savoured the gourmet delights of haricots poached  in a delicately flavoured tomato sauce on a bed of lightly toasted seeded crostini (or beans on posh toast if you prefer).

The Glimmer Mist had settled nicely into the flower centres and I accented it some more with some Hero Arts flat back pearls, then mounted it onto a lilac scallop circle, edged with purple ink.

I stamped a stalk and two leaves from our Ruby Tuesday stamp set and the stamped the words from the Words of Gratitude set, inked the edges and mounted that onto the same lilac card.

The whole thing was then mounted onto a lilac card with a nice patterned K&Co paper.

The flash has bounced off the glimmer mist a little, so here’s a close up showing the texture.

Well, I don’t have a plan for this card, so I’ve decided to give it away to someone right here on the blog.  Leave me a comment and I’ll pick a name randomly on Sunday.  Let me know if you’d like it addressed to you and signed, or left blank so you can send it to someone yourself.  It’s almost 6 inches square.