It was my brother in law’s birthday a few months back and I knew what I wanted to do for his card. I planned to use the Happy Hours set and it worked out pretty well – a row of 5 different shaped glasses in lost lagoon and hello honey. Until the day after I made the card and I was using Blackberry bliss. My sister, Caro, had warned me about this colour telling me that it is hard to get off the stamps so as not to contaminate the Stampin’ Scrub and then shortly after, have all your “cleaned” stamps have a slight pink tinge. So I had a brainwave and squirted Stampin’ Mist onto the stamp itself to get most of the ink off (after I’d stamped and stamped and stamped and got off as much as possible). This worked really well apart from the magenta freckles that appeared on my arm. Oh. And on Ben’s card. One dot right above a stamped glass. All I could think to do was to add a blackberry bliss cocktail umbrella right over the dot and a second one and an olive. And it worked! And made me realise that this little pop of blackberry bliss improved the card. And it looked as if I’d meant to do it in the first place!

I liked the effect so much that I grabbed more blackberry bliss and lost lagoon and did more glasses. I know olives aren’t purple, but I like the look. This card evolved as it went along – the whisper white cardstock is actually matted on blackberry bliss which is matted on the moonlight DSP stack. Including the copyright on the moonlight paper which I didn’t notice at the time! I decided that I didn’t like the extra DSP at the sides and cut that down so it now looks as if there are just 2 little strips of DSP above and below.

Base: Blackberry bliss 8.5″ by 5.5″

DSP: 3 1/8″ by 4.25″

Blackberry bliss mat: 2.25″ by 4.25″

Top layer: 2″ by 4.25″

Stamp set: Happy Hour

Inks: Lost lagoon, blackberry bliss

After making this one, I decided to simplify things and made it again, this time in hello honey and blackberry bliss. At least the strawberry is closer to the proper colour!

Base: Blackberry bliss 8.5″ by 5.5″

DSP: Moonlight stack: 2 strips of 3/8″ by 4.25″

Top layer: 2.25″ by 4.25″

Stamp set: Happy Hour

Inks: Hello honey, blackberry bliss

This time instead of all the matting, I merely adhered 2 small strips of DSP above and below of the white cardstock. Easier, just as effective and the card doesn’t weigh a ton!