I need to ask you a question – When you first looked through the new Stampin’ Up! annual catalog, did you pause when you got to page 108?  And, did you realize that your jaw had literally dropped??!!  If you’re honest… come on… I know you did!  Because I certainly did the same thing.

The Forever Greenery Suite is absolutely amazing and has so many possibilities for gorgeous cards, 3D pieces, and more.  And, there are many, many ideas for ways to use this suite of products that can be found on every social media platform.  Well – Please allow me to add one more idea into the mix.  This one is very fun, easy, and really packs a punch!  Take a look below –

Here are directions to make the card –

• Start with a piece of Whisper White cardstock cut to 4 1/8″ x 5 3/8″.
• Grab your Forever Fern stamp set, your Embossing Buddy, White Embossing powder, your heat gun, and Versamark ink.
• First – Rub the Embossing Buddy over the cardstock to get rid of static that will pickup stray embossing powder.
• Then – Look at the two foliage pieces on the card that are heat embossed in white.  Get those two stamps, and stamp the images onto the cardstock with Versamark ink.  Liberally sprinkle the White Embossing powder over the stamped area to cover the images.  Capture the excess powder on a piece of scrap paper and return it to the embossing powder container for future use.
• Make sure there is no stray embossing powder.  If there is, gently brush it off the paper.  Next – Grab your heat gun and heat set the embossing powder.
• Get out a few of your favorite green inks.  I chose some of the ink colors that are highlighted in the Forever Greenery Suite – Garden Green, Pear Pizzazz, Just Jade, Pretty Peacock, and Shaded Spruce.
• Use your favorite ink blending tool to put a light coat of Pear Pizzazz ink over the white heat embossed images.  The images will become much easier to see as the ink is added.  This technique is called emboss resist since the embossed area resists taking on the color of the ink.
• After you’ve added some color over the embossed images, start adding more and different shades of green around the cardstock using your ink blending tool.  Remember – Go light with the coloring until you see your design.  You can always add ink to get a deeper, darker color as you finish your card.
• Look at the example card to see how the shades of green are all over the background in various shades and intensities.
• Use your choices of the remaining foliage stamps in the Forever Fern stamp set and your choices of inks to stamp around the cardstock.  I really had fun using different generations of ink on this card.  Meaning – I might stamp one image with Shaded Spruce, turn the paper slightly, not reink the stamp, and stamp the image again.  The lighter Shaded Spruce ink will give a different result than the first image that I stamped with full ink on my stamp.
• I really like the grunge dots stamp that is include in the Forever Fern stamp set.  You’ll see that I randomly stamped dots in different colors and generations on the card.
• To finish the card, I made a card base with Just Jade cardstock (absolutely gorgeous)!!!  The cardstock was cut to 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ and scored at 4 1/4″ on the 8 1/2″ side.  The focal point piece was adhered directly to the card base.
• I also used a piece of Just Jade cardstock as the background for my sentiment.  The sentiment “love & laughter Forever After” from the Forever Fern stamp set was heat embossed with White Embossing powder and then die cut with one of the dies from the Stitched Rectangles Dies collection.  The sentiment was added to the front of the cards using dimensionals.
• To add one more sprig of white foliage, I decided to die cut a piece using Whisper White cardstock and the Forever Flourishing dies.  The die cut piece was tucked underneath the sentiment.

Give the emboss resist technique a try!  It is fun and very addictive.  I cannot wait to see the beautiful cards that you make with this technique and the amazing products from the Forever Greenery Suite.

The products that I used to make the card are shown below.  If you click on any picture, you’ll go directly to my on-line store.

Happy stamping!
Laurie