Three Stunning Cards with Enchanted Roses

Hello, Altenew friends. I'm glad to be back with you today with three cards made using the lovely, lovely Enchanted Roses Stamp Set.

This is a gorgeous (LARGE) floral image that I love because you can use it to make a dozen different cards that don't look alike, simply by stamping a different portion of the oversized stamp image.

Card 1

Let's begin with the blue watercolored card.

This card has an interesting beginning. I had planned to make a simple black and white stamped card with no color, but the acetate stamp liner with the images for this stamp set printed on it was lying on my desk, along with other detritus and debris from previous card hurricanes, and it happened to be lying on a painted piece of watercolor paper that I'd made and die cut a loooooong time ago for some project I don't even remember! The simple black outline against the colorful card panel looked so good that the black and white plan flew out of my head, and I decided to stamp on the watercolored panel instead!

It was still going to be just a simple stamped image on a pretty watercolor background. The effect was nice, and it looked good. But if ever there was a Queen of Can't Leave Well Enough Alone, its me. I pulled out my watercolor paints and using colors already on the paper, I simply deepened the shades on the flowers and leaves. Basically, adding some green to the leaves and some blue to the flowers. Just to give it some extra definition, y'know? I wanted to add clarification to the outline shapes. And I LOVE the result!

Next, I stamped a sentiment from the Vintage Garden Stamp Set and heat embossed it as I had the Enchanted Roses image. I matted the die-cut watercolor card panel with a thin line of black paper to emphasize the black stamped outlines and paired that with some tiny gingham checked patterned paper that matched nicely.

To back it up to the beginning for anyone wondering how I got the blotchy watercolored panel, there are a few different ways to do this; smooshing water-based ink pads on a slick surface and adding water, or scribbling with the Altenew Waterbrush Marker pens onto a slick surface and spritzing with water to create puddles.

But my favorite way (and the way I did this card panel) was to mix up watercolor paints and spread very liquid puddles of colors on a slick surface before laying the cardstock facedown on the paint and lifting up. I usually heat dry between “smooshes” so that I can see which sections need more of this color or that, and I like the way the heat tool produces those defined outlines on some patches of color.

Card 2

Now for a slimline card! The first time I ever laid eyes on this stamp set I knew there was a slimline card in my future so that I could come as close as possible to using the entirety of the stamped image. I still had to cut a bit off one side, but look at her! Isn't that the prettiest flower branch you ever did see?

Because I was still drooling a little over the watercolored flower image above, I decided to try and replicate that look with alcohol-based Artist markers. For the leaves and stems, I used Frayed Leaf and Sea Glass markers, which if you do some color swatching, you'll see are much brighter colors than what you see here. I was able to “tone down” the bright colors by coloring on top with Limestone – a pale gray marker.

For the flowers, I used all the very palest shades of blue, blue-green, and cream that I could, and again, “dulled” them back by coloring over everything with a slightly gray-toned marker. I didn't worry too much about trying to get realistic shading on such small petals, but with the variation in colored markers, I think it comes off ok!

I used two of the greetings in the Enchanted Roses Stamp Set to stamp Birthday Wishes, and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Then, I trimmed the stamped panel slightly smaller on all four sides and matted with a piece of coordinating solid cardstock.

Card 3

Finally, my last card is more tone on tone, a similar direction to where I thought I was headed with the first card I shared above. This time, though, I stamped with embossing ink onto heavy white cardstock and heat embossed with silver embossing powder.

Shading

Next, to add some shading to the stamped image for this card, I colored with alcohol markers again. I used the Limestone marker and lightened from there with very pale shades of Copic markers.

Frame

The next step was to create a frame for the stamped and colored portion of the stamp. I die cut the Leaf Frame Cover Die from a metallic silver paper I had in my stash and stacked it up with two more layers of die-cut cardstock behind. Then, I cut the stamped image slightly larger than the frame opening and glued it to the back of the stacked leafy frame. I adhered all of that to another piece of the same metallic paper and adhered all the layers to a folded card base.

Sentiment

Finally, I didn't want a sentiment to overwhelm the card design so I stamped one of the greetings in the Sentiment Strips Stamp Set onto vellum paper and heat embossed before trimming it to a narrow strip and gluing it to the edges of the frame opening. Metallic anything is hard to photograph on the best day, but the cloudy skies we've had lately seemed to add to the challenge, so this card reads a little more green in photos than it does in real life.

That's it for me today! I hope you saw something to make you want to pull out paper and stamps and create! Thanks for stopping by, and have an awesome day!

SUPPLIES USED:

Enchanted Roses Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Leaf Frame Cover Die [ ALTN ] Sentiment Strips Stamp Set [ ALTN ] Vintage Garden Stamp Set [ ALTN ] 12×12 White Cardstock (10 sheet/set)… [ ALTN ] Vellum Translucent Paper (25 sheets/set) [ ALTN ] Embossing Ink [ ALTN ] Obsidian Pigment Ink [ ALTN ] Crystal Clear Crisp Embossing Powder [ ALTN ] Antique Silver Crisp Embossing Powder [ ALTN ] Artist Markers Green Fields Set [ ALTN ] Artist Markers Cool Summer Night Set [ ALTN ] Artist Alcohol Markers Rock… [ ALTN ] Watercolor 36 Pan Set [ ALTN ] Watercolor Palette – Large [ ALTN ]