Slimline Gears & Textures for Ladies!

 Happy Tuesday to you! Today I have a fun project to share with you that may be a surprise. It's a different take on what is probably considered to be a masculine style stamp set. Let's take a look!

Do you ever take the time to really study your stamp set images before stamping? Sometimes I stare at the imaged on the sheet and turn, rotate and take a long look. This helps to see the images in a different way, at least for me.  When studying the Gears and Textures stamp images I noticed the gears could become flowers. Once I saw that the other imaged stated to fill in the idea with stems, leaves and flower centers. That's how I do it to see things outside of the box. Give it a try.

Ok, gear flowers. Who would have thought? Next decision was what colors to use. I decided on the soon to be gone 2024-2026 In Colors: Shy Shamrock, Peach Pie, Petunia Pop, Summer Splash and Pretty in Pink. One more decision was to go with a slimline card because I wanted to have a little garden of gear flowers and that length gave me more room!

Here is a photo of the stamp set with labels on the images I used for my design. I hope this helps you see them in a new way! I can see even more in the images I didn't use for this card! I hope to put those ideas to use soon!

Because I'm a lefty I started on the left side of the card stock that is 8" x 3". I stamped the gears first then added "stems", "leaves" and "centers. It creates a whimsical look and adds even more versatility to your stamps! 

Now, there is a coordinating die set. I chose to just use the stamps this time . You could easily use the dies for this design idea and even pop up the flowers for dimension! 

The grass was created with s strip of CS and tearing one long edge. I did the same for the inside of the card, too. I debated on using gems of some kind. The longer I think about something like that the more it tells me maybe I just don't need to add anything else! With all the details in the gears I felt gems would just be too busy. So I kept it really simple and added two gems under the sentiment. This draws your from all the pretty gear flowers to the sentiment.

One more thing I added was the ribbon along the left edge. I used white and color matched it by using Stampin' Blends. So fun and easy to do.

On to the inside.....

I always like to add some decoration to the inside of the card, too. Just having a sentiment doesn't work for me. I added a few gear flowers to the inside to mimic the card front. Simple but it adds a lot don't you think?

On to the envelope......

As you can see I added two gear flowers in the corner. For the address area I fancied that up a bit, too. Using the Addressed to You set I added the oval but instead of using the flowers, trees or balloons in the set I added a couple gears to bring the theme together!

What do you think of my gear flowers? Look at your images a bit longer and maybe you'll see new ways to use them, too!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Michelle Loncar

Independent Stampin' Up® Demonstrator 

Images© Stampin' Up!

#showandtellwithmichelle #slimlinecards #cardmaking #gears&textures