Merry Monday #109 - Use Flowers

Good morning friends.  Back with another Christmas card for the Merry Monday challenge and for my growing stash!  This week the challenge is to use a flower, and I think we are all thinking alike, as I'm seeing LOTS of Poinsettia's in everyone's cards.  But that's ok, as it's a beautiful flower!  Have you noticed how in the past few years there are SO many different colored varieties of Poinsettia's available?  And how some of them are not "natural" colored ones?  My mom had the prettiest one a few years ago that was cream colored with a teal color mixed in...so not natural but absolutely beautiful!!  I'm telling you this, because yesterday on my blog I told you I've been trying to get out of the mold of feeling like I have to use only natural colors for leaves and flowers on my cards, and experiment with other colors a bit more.  I loved how my Hawaiian Shores fern leaves from yesterday's card turned out so well, that I decided to try it again with a Poinsettia flower for this weeks challenge.  Take a look:

I stamped my flower first with Melon Mambo ink, and then masked it while I stamped the fern leaves in Hawaiian Shores ink (flower is GinaK - "Year of Flowers" and fern leaves are PTI - "Meadow Greens").  I used my Aqua Painter to get the watercolored look, and if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you will be better able to see this.  My sentiment is from PTI's "Think Big Favorites #21.  To finish I added a few iridescent sequins and a sheer ribbon.  Oh, and a little bit of Wink of Stella (silver) in the center of my Poinsettia.  Not your typical Christmas colors, but I really like how it turned out.  This is a card that would have been SO perfect to send my oldest daughter when her and her husband were stationed in Hawaii for Christmas!  (maybe I still will, to remind them of a warmer and less snowy Christmas!! :0)

There's still time to play along with this week's challenge, and you can get all the details and inspiration right here .

Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a wonderful Thursday! :0)