Birthday Peony

Good morning!  Well, it's morning where I am.  :-).  I can't believe the lovely temperatures we've been having lately.  Lovely sunny days too.  Well, except for one day last week when we had about 30mm of rain.  However the rain and warmth has melted an incredible amount of snow!  Yay!  It doesn't look good for the river flooding though this year.  I'm not sure how it's not going to flood.  So much snow and river levels were high before the winter too.  Luckily, our house is not in the flood zone.  :-).

Anyway, I've got a card to share today that features a lovely large peony stamp.  It's a jumbo stamp by Stampendous.  I don't think it's still available though.  I looked on their site and couldn't find it.  It's too bad cause it's lovely.

So, I stamped and embossed the peony in black then used my Spectrum Noir markers (DR3 & GB5) to colour it in.  You might wonder why the colours seem a bit muted.  Well, it started out as a different idea that didn't pan out so I fussy cut the peony out to salvage it.  The paper the peony is on is a medium blue colour which muted the colours.  I like the effect though.  Anyway, once that was done I stamped my flourishes (Inkadinkado) in dove grey StazOn.  I added a butterfly in the same grey.  The butterfly stamp is a very old one.  It one of the first stamps I bought all those many years ago when this illness....*cough*, I mean, obsession....I mean, hobby, started.  ;-).  I still love that butterfly.  I stamped the sentiment (Fiskars) in black. The next and last step was to adhere the peony to the card.  I love the way the bold peony looks on the white with the soft grey.

I'm linking up to the following challenges:

STAMPlorations - the monthly challenge is stamping and your favourite technique.  Well, colouring is one of my top favs to do.  :-)
The Card Concept - they want you to add a butterfly.  My card could be considered Clean & Simple or Clean & Graphic I suppose, though I think the latter applies more.

Spectrum Noir Challenge - it's an "anything goes" challenge this month
Time Out Challenge - the theme is birthday with an optional twist of masculine.  I decided to opt out of the twist.  :-)

On a little bit different note, I'd like to welcome a new follower!  Her name is Patti and her blog is stationary Styles.  She's been blogging since 2008!!  She's a wonderful card artist and I recommend checking out her blog.  :-). Welcome Patti!

Well, I do have another card to share but that will another post a little later on today.  Until then have a lovely day!