When feeling down play with some flowers!

Life has been SO very busy and just, well, draining for me over the past 2 months. I've not been crafting near as much as I'd like to. My anxiety has taken over my life and made each day very difficult for me to get through without wanting to scream several times a day.

In between my bought's of this anxiety and all of mine and hubby's doctor appointments, I've found "some" time to craft. The card I'm sharing today was a card that I made to give to my Ma.
She liked it a lot, and I'm glad, because it really wasn't my favorite. Some parts of the card I really liked, but the overall end product I wasn't all that happy with. But hey, as long as the recipient is happy, I'm happy.

So, here's a sneak peek, click below to see the rest.

Thanks for clicking to see more of my card. So, what do you think of this card? Good, or no good? I'm torn. I like some parts of this card, but not others. It took me a while to get this card done because I kept taking it apart and rearranging it and moving things and adding other things and then I finally settled on it and stuck it all together.

 For the main Image and the sentiment I used the Stampin' Up! Upsy Daisy stamp set. For the colors, I knew before I made the card that these were the colors I was going to use. I used Stampin' Up! Tempting Turquoise and Melon Mambo. I do think that the colors go very well together. For the shadow of the image, I inked up my stamp and stamped it once, then I quickly stamped it again to get the shadow behind the front image.

 For the yellow cardstock behind the image stack, if you look closely you can see a design that shines. I used one of my extra large background stamps (I don't know the company or the name of the stamp though) to create the floral background. I used Versamark and some clear embossing powder. I'll put a picture of the stamp below, if you know the company or the name of the stamp, please let me know!!

For the sentiment, I played around with a few ways to add it to the card. I stamped it and then punched with the Decorative Label punch, that didn't look right, then I stamped it and die cut it with a framelit shaped die, I didn't like that either. Then I was looking through my stamps and noticed that I had quite a few 'frame' stamps, so I did a few sample images before putting anything on this card. I just wasn't happy with anything I tried. Then I remembered that I had a 'frame paper' in one of my 6x6  Recollections paper pads, the "All Girl" pad. So, I pulled that out and cut out the middle of the frame. The sheet is just a sheet of pink and white frames with yellow polka dots all over the background. That's the part I cut out of the middle, and then fussy cut the outside of the frame. Then, I used some pop dots to pop the frame up around the image. THIS is actually my favorite part of the card, and then the flower is my next favorite.
At the top, there are 3 brads. I used 2 Recollections heart brads and 1 JoAnn Scrap Essentials Dragonfly brad. I thought the dragonfly would go cute with the flowers.

 As you can see, I used a few sheets of 'shimmer' cardstock, from the Colorbok shimmer 12x12 stack. I used the shimmer cardstock for the card base as well as the yellow and turquoise behind the stamped flower image as well as for the flower punched border behind the pink batik paper. I chose the stippled pink paper because it looks like batik fabric, and my mom is a quilter. I thought she might like that (and, of course, she did!)
For the flower, I layered 2 Recollections flowers (the yellow and the decorative swirled flower) and then added a small Prima flower on top with a cute little Recollections heart brad.

For the inside, I used the spare mini flowers that were punched out when I punched the Fiskars floral border punch. That's one thing I like about some border punches, they give you tiny little pieces to use as extra embellishments. I just added some little gems in the middle of each flower.

Also, as noted above, here is a picture of the background stamp that I used to make the background image on the yellow cardstock.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS STAMP IS OR WHO IT'S MADE BY??? If so, PLEASE comment and let me know!

Well, that's my card for today, I hope you like it. I really appreciate you stopping by to check out my crafts!

Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie