Purple Zinnias

     Oh boy was this card a challenge.  I find beautiful floral element cards to be so difficult cause you don't want to ruin the pretty image with a ugly background.  I have admired Flourishes Stamps for a long time, but have been a bit intimidated by them.  I was lucky enough to be able to purchase a few of the sets Beate Johns was selling (still totally depressed that she's giving up stamping).  This image and sentiment are from the Zinnias set.
     I wish I had the design know how of my buddy Katie Sims who is on the Flourishes team.  She and a couple of my other bloggie friends are so talented at putting the elaborate decorative Spellbinder dies to use on their cards.
     I told Katie I was going to try to sneak in the time to make a card for the current Pantone color challenge at Flourishes and since I've been stuck inside for a couple of days with crazy Winter Storm Leon I managed to put this together.  I wish it were a little more fancy, but I'm pretty happy with it.
     Speaking of Leon, here's what my yard looked like this morning.

     Now remember, I live on the Gulf Coast, like twenty miles inland from the beach so this is something we just don't see here.  In fact I think it's been 17 years since we had enough snow to actually stick and accumulate.  This is not snow.  We never got the fluffy stuff.  It's all sleet.  Pretty much everything has shut down for the past two days and will probably remain that way tomorrow since temps aren't going to get high enough to really get rid of the sleet.  It's most probably going to refreeze on the roads and we coastians just do not know how to drive in those conditions.
     And how about these ice daggers!  I hope no little birdies land on my air conditioning unit.  They might get speared when these let go.

     Besides the Flourishes challenge, Id like to enter my card in the following challenges also:

Vintage Stamping Challenge--lavender and lace
Addicted to Stamps--flowers
Amusing Challenge--anything goes

     Hope you're all staying safe and warm.  I see some of my Canadian friends are about to get hit again.  Sending big warm hugs!

Supplies:
Paper--My Mind's Eye "So Sophie", Georgia Pacific, Copic XPress-it Blending card
Stamps--Flourishes "Zinnias"
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics
Tools:  Spellbinders Romantic Rectangles, MFT Die-namics Mini Tab, Martha Stewart and Marvy Uchida butterfly punches, Cuttlebug, The Paper Studio A2 Stripes embossing folder
Miscellaneous:  The Paper Studio and Recollections pearls, Martha Stewart ribbon, Crafter's Square trim, Yellow Stickles