You're Invited

Invitations aren't something that many of us who have been under Stay-at-home orders have been thinking about lately, but the theme of the current challenge on the Art Impressions blog is "You're Invited" and is all about invitations. They have released two new invitation stamps sets, Greenery Invites and Floral Invites and they are beautiful, but I don't have them. I was inspired by the sprays of flowers and foliage in them though, so I went digging through my collection to see what I could find.

I had kind of planned to make something with my collection of watercolor stamps (they really aren't getting enough love lately!), but in my digging I came across this set:

A few years ago Art Impressions had grab bags available online as part of their annual warehouse sale, and this was part of one of the grab bags I ordered (I'd love to be able to attend the sale in person someday, but Michigan is a long way from Oregon!). I'm pretty sure that none of these images are available for sale anymore, but that floral corner piece really called my name. Here is what I ended up with

I used three markers to color the stamp (Marvy Olive Green, Marvy Magenta, and Stampin' Up! Close to Cocoa) and I stamped it twice on watercolor paper. Then I used a damp brush to blend out the colors.

I'm sure I probably have a stamp somewhere with the phrase "You're Invited", but I wasn't really in the mood to hunt for one. I decided to create my sentiment using the Mama Elephant Calli Letters stamps set. I'm honestly not sure it was any faster than hunting would have been, but I love the final effect.

Since I was stamping with VersaMark to emboss, I wouldn't have been able to see each letter as I stamped it. To solve that problem, I stamped the words with dark grey ink on some scrap paper first, cut them out and positioned them where I wanted them on the card. Once I was happy with their position, I taped the words together and also taped them to a scrap of acetate that was aligned so both the card and the acetate would line up in the corner of my MISTI. If that doesn't make complete sense, here's a picture of the words taped to the acetate

Then I could line up each letter over top of the "pattern" and I would be sure everything would end up in the right place. I had to add the comma in myself with my VersaMarker. I also used it to add the lines framing the other two corners and then everything got embossed in gold.

The finishing touch was a little bit of Wink of Stella on the flowers. I'm such a sucker for the sparkle that adds, but it's not easy to photograph!

Here's one last shot of the completed card, because, why not?

I hope you like my card. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!