As poppies are in bloom, my attention was drawn once again to my favorite background stamp.  I am sad to see it retire, I truly am.  Retiring or not, this one is a keeper that I will use for years to come.

With that said, this post is a good news bad news.  Yes, my precious poppies will retire, but the wonderful Perpetual Calendar stamp set carried over!  The little flowers I stamped all around my gift bag are one of many adorable little stamps in that set.  It is so versatile.  I think it has been the most heavily used stamp set from the spring catalog.  Interesting…

You cannot tell from the photo, but there is a little cellophane bag inside.  I made the floral windows on both sides to show the “treats”, but there aren’t any to show.  Literally, I don’t keep candy at my home.  You will just have to use your imagination.

I stamped the poppies on a very vanilla card front using tangelo twist.  I then used my aqua painter to get a bit of ink to the centers of the flowers that showed them.  I cleaned my brush of ink and just used water on the rest.  I simply brushed over the stamped flowers to move bits of the ink around.  It gives a very subtle look, but it is just right.  I could have brought in another color for the stems, but I wanted this monochromatic.  A simple bow of very vanilla seam binding ribbon, sadly retiring, finishes off both projects.

Have a creative day!

Moana