A Flowery Card for my Gardener Friend

My dear friend Mary and I lived next door to each other for 15 years. She has quite the green thumb. I.DON'T. The fern in the picture? Her housewarming gift to us when she helped us move here from IL 4 years ago. (I killed it; don't tell her or I'll blame it on the drought we had that year.)

When we were "side by side friends", I helped her weed, and we would chat while we pulled and check the progress of all her different specimens. She tried to get me to love gardening like she did, but I like foliage (variegated leaves and coleus) better than flowers. Thank goodness she didn't let it come between us!

Her birthday was yesterday. She's gone until early next week, so the card may still make it to her house before she gets home. This means it's not a belated birthday card, right?

In homage to Mary's gardening skills, I used A Flower for All Seasons and copied the layout from the new Stampin' Up! 2010-2011 Big Idea Book & Catalog. I stamped 2 of the images on scraps of Whisper White card stock, colored them, and then cut them out. It was time-consuming, but worth it. I popped them up on Stampin' Dimensionals to give the appearance on the card that this was a 3D grouping of flowers.

Mary's husband Dan has this saying about flowers: "A CUT flower is a DEAD flower." Well, at least Mary will have these flowers to enjoy without being concerned about them drooping or dying!

I wish I could be there to meander through the grove with my dear friend and sit on her screened porch and chat over a glass of iced tea. As they say, "Next year."