Botanical Bounty, Part 1

Mornin' y'all!  Daphne has already started pestering me to go for a walk (we usually go around 10 and it's just now 9), but I just made my second cuppa so she's going to have to wait.  Can't let the tea get cold.

So, after feeling rather blocked for a while last week, this week I am on fi-yurrrr again and I made a bunch of cards yesterday, and bonus, today is Ryan's STEM club so I get an extra hour and a half of crafty time.  Woo!  Anyway, yesterday I took the CAS on Friday prompt of BOTANICAL and I RAN with it.  First I looked up "botanical" online to make sure I was thinking the right thing, and it's anything related to "plants and plant-based products used for medicine, scent, or flavor."  So here's what I made:

The first image to pop in my head was the vanilla orchid in Lovely & Sweet, and I got out the coordinating Nature's Sweetness Specialty DSP (I always think Nature's Sweetness is the name of the stamp set rather than the DSP so it takes me longer to find the stamps).  Turns out I had some scraps already cut from the DSP, so I chose the two larger scraps and made two cards.

I was going to color in the image a bit, but after putting it next to the paper I decided I liked it just the way it is with no color on it.  But I wasn't done yet.

I used the large leafy die from Nature's Symphony to make a mask from scratch paper and then used a blending brush to put it on a Crumb Cake card base I found in my file cabinet.  I added some of the weathering stamp on top and I thought it was looking like a sympathy card since I tend to like more muted color palettes for those, and I gravitate towards blues and greens.  I hate making sympathy cards when I actually need one, so I decided to go with the impulse on this one so I have one on hand next time I need it, using a greeting from the retired hostess set Simply Sketched.

Still not done with my botanical cards, but that will have to continue in another post, probably later today.  Plus I still have some other botanical stamp sets on my table that I haven't used yet and I keep getting more ideas as I go, so I'm going to ride the creative wave where it takes me...after Daphne and I go out for our walk in the lovely sunshine.  Cheers!

Supplies, first card:
Stamps:  Lovely & Sweet
Ink:  Versamark, Pebbled Path
Paper:  Pebbled Path, Thick Basic White, Nature's Sweetness DSP
Accessories:  Stitched So Sweetly dies, clear EP, Dimensionals

Supplies, second card:
Stamps:  Lovely & Sweet
Ink:  Versamark, Pebbled Path
Paper:  Pecan Pie, Thick Basic White, Nature's Sweetness DSP
Accessories:  Stitched So Sweetly dies, clear EP, Dimensionals

Supplies, third card:
Stamps:  Nature's Symphony, Simply Sketched
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Mossy Meadow, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Layering Ovals dies, Dimensionals