The Beauty of Black & Yellow

Morning! We are having another beautiful day here in MN! Both Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous too. Yesterday, I worked out in the yard, weeding my gardens, checking to see which plants survived the winter and which did not. I even ventured to the nursery to check out the hanging baskets. Do all of you agree that seasonal flowers are EXPENSIVE? Yikes, you have to take out a small loan just to decorate the deck!

In celebration of the wonderful weather we've been having, I thought I'd share these two cards with you that utilze all the same papers, but different stamp sets and layout. Don't you just *love* Mr. Bee? I think he's adorable. He's from Stampendous, and there's more stamps just like him! He's buzzing by today to give you a flower from the garden, courtesy of me {{{{hugs}}}}}.

Both cards are anchored with black and white floral paper from Imaginisce (Black Tie Optional). The black and white polka dot paper is from Reminisce (Basic Dot). For Mr. Bee, I stamped him on Whisper White cardstock, and then colored him with my SU markers in More Mustard and Black. I stamped him again on Summer Sun cardstock, and then cut out just the flower so I could adhere the flower to the main image and make it 3-dimensional. I added some white polka dots to the flower to tie in with the other polka dots on the card! The little hearts at the end of Mr. Bee's antenna's are colored with a Pink Passion marker. The whole image is matted with both Summer Sun and Basic Black. The polka dot strip is matted with Summer Sun cardstock and then given a decorative edge with my mini scallop scissors. A black gingham ribbon is just the right touch to finish it off!

For the second card, I used the Petal Prints set. This is my favorite flower stamp. I used to use this all the time! Do you see the glitter on the flower, which was stamped in More Mustard? I stamped the outline of the flower with Tsukineko Glue Pad, and then sprinkled with fine glitter. It looks prettier in real life! This would be the first time I have used the Tsukineko Glue Pad, but I hope to try it more this week to get a real feel for it.

I laid the Petal Prints flower image (which was matted with Black and Summer Sun cardstock), on top of a horizontal strip of the polka dot paper (which also had the scallop decorative edge). A black and white gingham ribbon was tied on top of the polka dot paper, and then the image was laid down. I used my tab punch from SU for the "thanks" sentiment, which is by Green Grass Stamps.

I love black and white, combined with just about any bold color. It's so dramatic!!!! If you can find these two different designer papers, it's worth picking some up...they are so fun to work with!!!

Before I sign off for today, I'll share another photo from my trip to Washington, DC last week.
If I remember correctly, this is a TULIP and NOT a peony. It sure looked like a peony to me when I first saw it at the National Botanical Gardens! I nearly croaked when I read that it was some fancy tulip....I sure wish I could find a tulip this gorgeous for my gardens here in MN!!!

Hope you have a wonderful day. Off for my exercise walk now.