Hello! I hope this post finds you well. I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of not just showcasing fancy folds and techniques, but also showing new stampers without a lot of tools how to make beautiful cards. I had recently posted about a card with the Beautiful Friendship stamp set, but that was focused more on making two cards from one stamped sheet. This time, I want to talk a little about the steps I took when stamping the cards.

For this card, I started with the purple flowers- hydrangeas- and stamped the one on the left in a slightly lighter shade (Highland Heather) than the one to the right (Gorgeous Grape), and overlapped them. Then I stamped the larger roses, which are attached in the stamp, but instead of stamping the whole double- flower stamp onto the paper, I stamped the flower on the right of the stamp to the left of the paper, and the flower to the left on the right of the paper (Terracotta Tile). I then inked the rosebuds in the same color, but used the corner of a green stamp pad (Mossy Meadow) to ink the stems. The leaves were stamped in the same green, overlapping the flowers in a few spaces, and finally the small yellow flowers (Daffodil Delight) were used to fill in. I didn’t use any masking. The sentiment (retired- Petal Palette) was direct to the card front, which was cut to 4 by 5 and 1/4 inches, and after matting with a 4 and 1/8 by 5 and 3/8 inch piece of Highland Heather, attached to a card base folded to 4 and 1/4 by 5 and 1/2 inches.

The next card is a distressed/tea-stained look- not for everyone, but I like it.

I used an off-white cardstock for this (Very Vanilla), and Crumb Cake ink for the card, with Soft Suede for the sentiment. All images are from the Very Versailles stamp set. I started with the script print, and stamped off once to give a light image. I then used the decorative elements, again stamped off once, and finally the leaf image, not stamped off. I squeezed the ink case to put a little ink on to the top of the inside lid, and used an Aquapainter to add water to the ink, and splatter it onto the card. I inked the edges of the card front with the same ink, double-matting it with Crumb Cake and Soft Suede cardstock. I stamped the sentiment in Soft Suede, and matted it with the same color cardstock, popped up with foam dimensionals.

Lastly, I stamped poppies from the Painted Poppies stamp set on white (Whisper White) cardstock.

I first stamped just the flower outlines in Tuxedo Black Memento Ink, and colored them in with light and dark Poppy Parade Stampin’ Blends (alcohol markers). I then used a fine-tip black marker and a straight-edge to draw the stems, and I also used the marker to draw hatch marks on the left of each, for shading. The leaves were added (again, with no masking needed), and all were colored with light and dark Granny Apple Green Stampin’ Blends. The sentiment is from the Celebrate Sunflowers stamp set, which actually says “let’s celebrate you”, but I put tape over the “let’s” before inking (don’t forget to remove the tape before you stamp!!!) and then stamped just the “celebrate you”.

None of these cards was hard to do, or took any particular skill- they just required a plan, and some careful placement so as not to overlap stamps. Sure, masking and overlap are wonderful, but I was focusing on simple but elegant!

The supply list is below- if you need anything and live in the US, you can shop by clicking Visit My Site above. I appreciate your support of my business. Thanks for stopping by, and if you decide to recreate one of the cards, I would love to see a picture in the comments! If you have any questions about the cards, the supplies, or joining my team as an independent Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, please feel free to contact me.

Happy stamping!

Michelle