FLOWER FRENZY!

Well, anyone who knows me knows I totally have an obsession with flowers. Seriously, it's bad. And when I discovered Primas, well let me just say, there should be a 12- step program for this. I remember when my friend Debbi came to visit me from the East Coast a few years ago. She saw the beginnings of my Prima collection and thought it was a bit extreme. Heck, if she only knew. The flowers I had then were probably only about a fifth (if that!) of what I have now. One thing that I can say in my defense however is that I do at least use- and often share them (see this week's blog candy). Unlike lots of other things I (or shall I say we?) tend to gather and hoard- I mean keep on hand. ;-)

Okay- to my point.

I LOVE paper flowers! And although I have loved being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I am now at a point where I absolutely love being a regular "customer"! I have a wonderful friend named Maureen who happens to be in my downline. She has also been part of one of my clubs for years. And, since I received back injuries from a car accident I was in, I have really pulled back on my SU! business and do very few workshops or stamp camps anymore. My first group, however remains faithful and we all continue to meet regularly. And now Maureen and I have started to "share" it. I will demo one month, then she will demo the next. It's great! It keeps both of us meeting our sales requirements, and it's not a big commitment for either of us.

But what I really enjoy, is having someone else come up with projects and learning new things from her. And Maureen is super talented. I don't know anyone who can scrap like she can! She can whip up an awesome page in no time flat! She feels cards are more of a "challenge" for her but you'd never know to look at any of them! Take a look at one of the cards we made at our last meeting with her:

Is that great? I just love the elegance of it and, of course, that FLOWER!!

Check it out up close...

And to think that we actually made these! Well, if that wasn't enough, wait until you see the card my sweet friend Pam sent me!

OMW- I squealed when I opened this baby up! Pam is so awesome. I had seen the flowers she made on her blog here and of course just had to ask her about them. The one I was particularly interested in was made using old pages from a book. So, the dear friend that she is not only sent me this amazing card- using the first flower she did and the one I so love- but even a couple of books to get me going (along with some other goodies, too!). I have to say, I can't imagine anyone having better or more generous friends than I have. My friends are the bestest and Pam is no exception!

So take a look at her amazing flower up close:

Is that great, or what?! She used lots and lots of layers. It's really fabulous!

Well, between those handmade beauties, and of course Primas like these that I have in my stash.....

(Aren't they yummy?!)

I felt it was high time I started making some flowers myself! And here is what I ended up with over the weekend:

I had SO much fun coming up with the various combinations of colors and designs!

Like this one where I just used white card stock and a little lavender ink on the edges and then sprayed it with Tattered Angels Frost...

And this one using a page from one of the books Pam sent me....

And to make this next one, I used Very Vanilla card stock and stamped it with my French Script BG stamp. Cool, huh? Oh, I wish the photo could show the shimmer of the Glimmer Mist better. It's sooo pretty!

On this one I used a retired lace patterned BG stamp. It came out much different than I thought it would, but I still like it. The color is not ink, rather from gold Glimmer Mist.

And here are some of my favorites. You can't really see too well but in person they are really, really pretty. I used chunky iridescent glitter on the edges of the petals. I also sprayed them with Frost Glimmer Mist.

Here's a shot of several made with the books,

And here are some solid ones with lots of glitter, shimmer and shine!

So... just what I need, huh? MORE FLOWERS!!! :-)

What do you think?