One layer card using Altenew peony stamps

Hi friends, for someone like me, who likes to play with patterned paper, not having layers on a card is hard. If nothing else, I will at least pop the sentiment up! But with some of the flower-y images lately, I have been intentionally making one layer cards, so that they are easy to ship / send by mail.

Today I decided to share my experiments with one layer cards. The Altenew stamps I am using today have layering images – images that are meant to be stamped on top of one another. I explored more of these images and possibilities in my last post also. I also did a quick video showing how to do masking. You can check it out here.

These images by themselves add a lot of details and layers of colors. Overall the card does not look like it ‘needs’ any more layers :-)

I stamped the big flower outline image on a postIt note and cut it out to be a mask. I also stamped the smaller flower outline on another piece of post it note and cut out another mask. Next I used my trusted MISTI tool to stamp the larger flower on the front of my card, masked it and stamped the smaller flower next to it. I also covered that one with a mask.

I stamped all the leaves and the smaller flowered branches around the flowers while they were covered with masks. I made some of the parts of these side images to overlap on my flowers. But the masks were on top, so all those partial images got stamped on my masks and the flowers underneath remained safe!

While I had my masks in place, I stamped all the layers and completed the leaves. Once I had my leaves in place, I removed the masks and stamped all the layers for my flowers.

Creating faux layering effect for the sentiment banner:

For the sentiment, I took a postIt note and cut out a banner shape using one of the dies. I used the negative space around it to mask out the surrounding area and blended the same red ink for the banner area. I stamped the sentiment using the same brown ink I used on flower borders. To give an impression of this banner being layered, I simply added shadow using my gray colored Zig marker.

Getting more out of ink pads:

For all the layers on the flowers I used a single red ink pad by Studio G. Yes, just one! Here’s how you can get multiple shades of a color from the same ink pad:

If you want a shade lighter than what is on the ink pad: Ink up the stamp as you normally would. Stamp off on a scratch piece of paper and then stamp on your main image. This is called second generation stamping. If you want more lighter color, stamp off twice. Each time you stamp off, you will be going more and more lighter with the color. My base layer, the lightest pink color, was done this way.
If you want a shade that is darker than the ink pad color: Stamp the image multiple times. MISTI tool works best for this as it will accurately stamp on the exact same image over and over again. You will need to reink your stamp between each impression, and this will build up the color to darker shades. I did this to one of the shaded layers. I stamped it twice.

I also did second generation stamping for some leaves which appear behind the others. It’s one ink pad for each color and I used it to create multiple shades.

As a last step, I scattered several clear sequins and a couple tiny die cut hearts and called this card done.

I hope you enjoyed this post and are inspired to try something like this. Don’t forget to let me know about your experiments. I love to hear them.

Supplies list

For your convenience, I am sharing links to the supplies I’ve used for these cards – click on the picture or link to go directly to the product. Wherever available, I have used affiliate links, which means when you make a purchase, I receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) which I use to run this blog. I truly appreciate your support!