SUO Challenges: A Colorful Farewell

Happy Tuesday and get ready for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

I know we did a color challenge last time but surprise!  It's another color challenge : )  We don't have a firm rotation of different challenge types, we make it up as we go along and I like it that way!  This time, we're bidding a fond farewell to the retiring In Colors:

Since Fresh Freesia is moving over to the Subtles family rather than retiring, I decided to focus on the other four colors and ended up with two cards.  So here they are:

Beautiful Thistle and the coordinating dies are (were? I don't know, I think the dies might be sold out now) available at a deeeeep discount in the retirement sale and as someone of possibly Scottish heritage I had to buy them months ago.  Shades of purple are the obvious choice for thistles, but a quick Google search showed me some bright pink milk thistles so I went with that.  The thistle is stamped with Evening Evergreen and then colored with Soft Succulent and Polished Pink Blends; I saved the Pale Papaya for the plaid background.  Because it's Scottish, of course there's plaid.

This was actually the first card I made, I was playing around again with the Freshly Made Sketch from a little while back and thought I'd try the dies in the set that don't cut out stamped images.  I had cut out and colored the large thistle and the two smaller ones but couldn't seem to find an arrangement with all three stamped flowers that worked right, so I did the cardstock ones on this card and used the leftover big stamped thistle for the other card.

I hope you will make the time to play with the retiring In Colors one more time before they go off to play golf at St. Andrews.  You can focus on one color, use two or three, or go for all of them--you'll see that the design team members went with all of those options!  Don't forget to post your colorful creation on the SUO Challenges blog.  Have fun!

Supplies, first card, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Thistle
Ink:  Evening Evergreen, Stampin' Blends in Polished Pink & Soft Succulent
Paper:  Evening Evergreen, Thick Basic White, Pale Papaya DSP
Accessories:  Beautiful Thistle dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, In Color Opal Rounds

Supplies, second card, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Thistle
Ink:  Evening Evergreen, Stampin' Blends in Polished Pink & Soft Succulent
Paper:  Evening Evergreen, Soft Succulent, Polished Pink, Thick Basic White, Delicate Desert DSP
Accessories:  Beautiful Thistle dies, Stylish Shapes dies, In Color rhinestone