Hi crafters, welcome back to the blog!

This weekend I got crazy. I went into my unfinished projects pile and actually finished one! What the heck?! Not going to lie, it makes me feel a little bit invincible, and a lot a bit happy. Having unfinished projects sitting on my desk drives me nuts, it’s the guilty reminder of needing to work on them, but not being able to find a ‘perfect’ way to finish them off that makes me want to shove them in a drawer and forget about them for a long time (however I have a handful of unused umbrellas still so the drawer is where they’re going lol). I feel a bit refreshed, so I’m hoping this wild exercise of finishing a project will give my crafty mojo a boost because I know I need it.

What started off my wild weekend was the desire to finally slap my beautiful ‘sunny days ahead’ umbrella on a card front and call it done. I love this card, especially the umbrella. As you know, florals are my absolute favorite, so any way I can incorporate them makes me happy. I had made this umbrella a handful of months back when a family member had a medical emergency and I wanted to send some cards to my aunt to keep her spirits up. While it might not be as fitting now, I know I have a card in my stash to send when anyone I know is having a difficult time, so that makes me happy.

I started the umbrella off die cutting the main umbrella piece out of Buttercup cardstock from Concord & 9th, and the white accent piece from plain white cardstock. I white heat embossed the ‘sunny days ahead’ sentiment two times to give it a more prominent effect, which I love. At this point, I knew the umbrella needed something extra, so that was when I decided to use extra floral pieces from the Friendship Garden die set from C9 (hint hint, those cards are another unfinished project in my stack). I used florals in Grapefruit, Sorbet and white cardstock and glued them in a way so that the eye would kind of bounce to them (in a ‘z’ pattern) and it would frame the greeting nicely.

Now fast forward to this past weekend. I had always wanted this umbrella on Sea Glass cardstock and some sort of frilly frame around it. Well, I tried that out this weekend and didn’t like it, so I pivoted. I still stamped all four turns of the Umbrella Turnabout stamp on Sea Glass cardstock in Sea Glass ink, but I got a little crafty with the matted piece. When I was brainstorming, I thought it would be awesome to have some details behind the umbrella to make it pop/make the greeting more pronounced. I went through my stash and pulled out the Sunburst backdrop from Lawn Fawn and die cut it out of Ivory cardstock from Simon Says Stamp (I’m still not too certain if that was the right color cardstock to use, but I really don’t know what other color I would have chosen). I used a medium sized rectangle die from my Nesting A2 Layers dies from Waffle Flower and die cut the sunburst panel in a way so that the umbrella would hide the circle cut out, but still give me the oomph I wanted from the stitched effects. I think this turned out wonderfully!

A little bit of thought later lead to me adding a sun and clouds from the Aqua Sky cabin gift die set that I got from C9 Summer Camp this year. If you don’t have this die, any type of cloud/sun combo should work perfectly! I ended up ink blending some Grapefruit ink over the sun and sun rays to add some visual contrast between the sun and the umbrella and glued the sun and cloud down. I popped the umbrella up on foam squares from Simon Says Stamp, placed it down, and surrounded it with Aqua Sky rain drops. I think this card came together nicely, and I love the cheery vibe it has!

My second card came together with a bit less overthinking (though it definitely had its fair share). I was originally planning to use the floral patterned paper umbrella that I had die cut using paper from the Garden Party patterned paper pack from C9, but after stamping all four turns of the turnabout stamp in the corresponding colors, I nixed that plan. Instead, I went with an umbrella I made using Sorbet and Grapefruit cardstock, as well as Clover cardstock for the details. I love this color palette, it reminds me of a watermelon haha! I die cut the handle out of Dove and Mushroom cardstock so I could make it two-toned. To add some visual interest to where my greeting was going to go, I die cut the medium sized rectangle from the A2 Marquee dies from Simon Says Stamp. I love the playfulness this gives to the card, and I like how little bits of the background colors pop through the holes the die makes. I stamped the ‘oh hello’ greeting in Stardust ink, and glued my umbrella down askew next to it. I finished the card off with some Gold Coin embellishments from Trinity Stamps, which I think adds another nice pop to this card.

Well, that’s it, folks! That’s a wrap on one fully finished project, and it only took me maybe 6 months to do, haha. I hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are, and that this post inspires you to get crazy and finish off some projects! I’ll catch you next time!