Hello, hello, hello stampers and paper crafters!  Welcome to my stop on the One Stamp At a Time (OSAT) Design Team Blog Hop!  This months theme is an extremely difficult one for me...Clean and Simple.  Now, one would think 'oh, that should be easy...you don't need a whole lot of stuff', but not for me.  I just cannot do it!  I struggle with the 'less is more' philosophy. I mean, really?!!  Have you seen my past projects?  They are full of layers, textures, accessories, dimension and fine details.  Oh, c'mon Lori...pull it together... clean and simple.  You CAN do this!!

This may be your first stop on the hop, or you may have hopped over here from Jeanna Bohanon's blog. Either way, in order to view all of the blog participants sharing their wonderful craftiness, click on the "NEXT" button at the bottom of each post.

To start off my clean and simple layout, I chose to work with the early released Eastern Palace Suite of products...Eastern Beauty stamp set and the coordinating Eastern Medallions Thinlits Dies.  Oh, and you'll need the Layering Circles Framelits Dies to create even more variety with the Eastern Medallions Thinlits.  Super fun together!

Creative Tips:

• Tone on Tone card layers are really a big thing right now.  The Very Vanilla cardbase and the next layer with no embossing texture or stamping fall right into the clean and simple theme...so far, so good!

• The 4-cornered clovers are die cut from Berry Burst, Powder Pink, and Tranquil Tide.  NOTE:  Snip each one at the inner corners to use them individually as shown in the picture below.

• Using a Circle Framelit, die cut Dazzling Diamonds paper to show off the beauty of the Lemon Lime Twist Medallion centers.

• The Powder Pink center was stamped with the dotted circle image using Tranquil Tide Ink.  The sentiment was inked in Berry Burst, punched with a 1" circle punch and popped on top with dimensionals.  All layered over top some Silver Metallic Thread and 1/2" Lemon Lime Twist Finely Woven Ribbon.

Upcycled Flower Jar:  The Eastern Medallions Thinlits Dies create a really cute flower arrangement.  Tying it all together with the card, the same new In Colors of Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist and Tranquil Tide make up the flowers.  The jar was painted with a pink wash, which resembles the new Powder Pink In Color.  I love it when things coordinate and match so well.

Creative Tips:

• To save time, the 3 dies needed to create the Lemon Lime Twist and Tranquil Tide flower center can all be nested inside each other to save time and one pass through the Big Shot.  You'll use 2 dies from the Eastern Medallion Thinlits Dies set and one of the Layering Circles Framelits.  LOVE it!

• DID YOU KNOW? that you can click on any images I include related to the project to see an enlarged version?  Yep!  I do this so that you can see the details of my projects a weeee bit better. As I get older, I'm finding myself pulling out what I call my "granny glasses".  haha