I’ve moved on to new paper.  It’s the Recollections Blue Blooms 6×6 paper pad.  I liked the colors, patterns and rose gold foil treatments so much I purchased 2.  Unfortunately I’m struggling a bit.  There are a lot of busy prints which I thought could be toned down with matting.  But, trying to find the right colored cardstock for matting has been difficult and I’ve ended up using black.  I think the black works well enough with the darker papers, but I’m finding I don’t like it as well with the lighter (i.e. pink) papers.  Also, I’m finding that the foil treatments seem to “fight” each other even when separated with matting.  I’m determined to finish one of the 2 paper pads.  I figure I’ll use the first paper pad as practice for the 2nd.

I actually like the first cards (2 of the same).  The background paper is a blue with pink diagonal pin stripe.  The focal panel is a pink and blue floral print on a white background.  The sentiment is stamped in black ink on white cardstock and placed across the focal panel.  As neither paper had a foil treatment, I decided to add some shine using the medium width Love from Lizi silver peel-offs along the top and bottom edge of the sentiment panel.  If doing this layout again, I’d probably use the wider width peel-offs for more impact.

The 2nd set of cards uses a blue tone-on-tone print for the background.  The focal panel is another pink and blue floral print but on a dark background.  I’m not sure if it’s blue or black, seems to depend on the light.  The floral print has the rose gold foil treatment on the leaves.  For the sentiment I used a strip cut from one of the 6×6 sheets.  When cutting, I was careful to include the foil treatment on the sentiment.  I wanted something in the upper right corner of the card but wasn’t sure what.  I thought a small foil flag would look nice but there wasn’t a large enough piece of the foil on any of the papers.  I ended up settling on a few pearls.

The paper pad also included 2 sheets of cut-aparts.  I doubt I’ll be able to use many of them, but will try to include a few.  The next set of cards used a pink patterned paper for the background.  The pattern was done in the foil treatment which made it very busy.  A matted floral panel and cut-apart covered much of the background which helped reduce some of the busyness.

I haven’t decided if I like the next card or not.  The background is a pink tone-on-tone print.  The focal panel is another floral, but is just shades of pink on a black background.  With all the florals, I thought wedding or anniversary.  Since I came across the anniversary stamp first I went with that.  I debated about adding pearls to the floral print but thought they got “lost”.  Instead I added the pearls to the background paper in the upper right corner.

I have a few full sheets and lots of scraps left, plus another whole paper pad.  I don’t want to give up on this paper yet.  I’ll see if I can find some other card sketches that may work with this paper.