Belated Happy Birthday to Leanne

I made this card for my good friend and Africa travel partner, Leanne, who celebrated her birthday last month. It's taken me this long to catch up and present her with a card and gift. It's a little sad when our lives get busy and take us in different directions but she's often on my mind.

I borrowed Fifth Avenue Floral from to make the card. I set myself a challenge of using colours I wouldn't normally reach for. It also helped that the card stock was sitting on my desk, remaining from earlier card-making. It was only afterwards that I questioned whether there is such a thing as a blue rose. I'm sure it's possible with all the genetic engineering in horticulture but personally, I haven't spied one.

To get the textured background, I stamped the flowers in Versamark on Brilliant Blue card stock and then clear heat embossed them. For the main image, I wanted an embossed (raised) image to help me stay within the lines when water-colouring. But I also wanted the flower to be Brilliant Blue in colour. Nearly all of the Stampin' Up! inks available in Australia are dye inks and they dry very quickly which is not helpful when you want the ink to dry slowly enough to coat it with an embossing power. Fortunately there is a workaround by inking the stamp in Versamark first, then Brilliant Blue dye ink followed quickly with clear embossing powder and heating. You can see this technique demonstrated via an online video here.

I created two embossed Brilliant Blue roses on watercolour paper so that I could colour and cut them out for a layered effect:


The top layer is smaller than the bottom layer, paper-tole style I guess, but only two layers and much quicker than multiple layers. The pretty lace border punch has been applied to Gable Green cardstock, and a greeting stamped in Brilliant Blue. A bit of sponging and it was done after decorating an envelope to match.

I'm really keen on this set, it first caught my eye when the queen of watercolouring, Alisa Tilsner, made the following card (click on the preview to go to Alisa's website and view the full card):

(With thanks to Alisa for her inspiring work)

Bye for now,

Love from Crafty Kim