Hey friends, I hope you all are having a fantastic weekend. I sure am. All of us, our stuff and our car has finally moved to TN! Yes, we move every year. Sometimes across the parking lot, sometimes across states. This time it was across states. More life updates and tea-time chat coming up soon, but today’s post isn’t about that.
Today I have one more idea to share with you using, (you guessed it right!) Altenew’s beautiful flower stamps. (Yes, I still can’t get enough of these beauties!)
For these cards, I used Strathmore watercolor paper and die cut it using the largest stitched rectangle by SSS. Then I heat embossed a flowery pattern using the two stamp sets from Altenew – A Beautiful Day and Peony Bouquet. I had to do lot of creative masking to get the look I was wanting. I used opaque white embossing powder for heat embossing and full-adhesive post-it notes for masking. I prepared 4 such panels and brought them along with me when I moved a couple weeks ago all by myself. {Yes, my family came 2 weeks later because of kids’ school. And yes, I sneaked in some craft supplies in place of some kitchen stuff when I came. A craftsy-gal has to do what a craftsy-gal has to do!)
Card 1
For my first card, I used Gansai Tambi watercolors and Ranger #2 round brush with “A Beautiful Day” stamp set. These watercolors have a nice blooming effect where the water seems to push the pigment towards edges. I used it to my advantage and made sure most of color moved towards edges of the petals in a way I wanted them to appear. With the heat embossing you sort of get a “well” which defines each petal and that also made it easy.
The images on the back of these stamp sets are great as guides to figure out the play of light and shadows.
To finishthe card , I added a couple sequins, a butterfly and a sentiment sticker from PinkFresh Studio. Finally I mounted the finished piece on my card base, which is made from green apple cardstock by SSS.
Card 2
For my second card, I used my Zig clean clear brush markers with the “Peony Bouquet” stamp set. I did the wet-on-wet technique on this card. I wet an entire petal using my Pentel waterbrush, before I took taking any color to it. One it was wet, I took my Zig marker and added color to the area where I wanted it to be darkest. From there on, I slowly pulled the pigment to rest of the petal using my waterbrush. I skipped adjacent petals to give the color to settle down and then went back to the skipped areas. I also went back with some more color, after giving the base layer time to dry.
I also used some gray color to go around the flowers and leaves to add some shadows. To embellish, I added another butterfly, a few iridescent sequins and another sentiment from PinkFresh Studio stickers. I was happy how the colors on the sentiment sticker matched so well with the colors on my card. Serendipity is sometimes my friend :-)
I found that the Gansai Tambi colors were so full of pigment. I had to add a lot of water to get some of those lighter shades. But I loved how vibrant and rich these colors were. I should have taped my watercolor paper before coloring them with these paints, as I did get some warping due to so much use of water. But that was an easy fix.
I did love working with my Zig real brush markers too. These colors are vibrant also, but as I was doing wet-on-wet technique while using these, I did not have trouble breaking down the pigements. Also these being markers are oh so convenient.
I hope you love these cards as much as I loved putting them together. Here’s some more Altenew floral inspiration for you:
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!
xoxo, ~Varada
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