A Birthday Rose for You

In this pretty card we combined a few different techniques that are easy to copy for you at home. First of, we used the "Beautiful You" (D1741) stamp set from Close to My Heart. If you ever wanted to try the layered stamping technique, then this set is a great start for you. The set includes three different sized flowers, leaves and a couple of phrases. While you can purchase just the stamp set, you can also get a bundle with the matching dies included. The bundle is called "Beautiful You Stamp + Thin Cuts" (Z3384)".

We started out with a white piece of cardstock. To use the layered stamps you need 3 different shades of ink to make it work. We used CTMH bashful ink for the base stamp (the big one of the big flower). Next we used pixie ink for the medium flower stamp of the big flower. Last we used blossom ink for the smallest stamp of the big flower.

The stamps are perfectly lined up on the carrier sheet, so when you take them off and place them on your blog, make sure to keep the same direction on all of them. Line them up with the previous one and make sure to start with the lightest to darkest ink. Some stamps might work in reverse order of the ink colors, but I normally always go light to dark.

After we stamped one rose in two opposite corners, we used a black pen and ruler to create the lines around the piece. The leaves are stamped with the masking technique. We stamped the first rose part (bigger stamp) on a piece of sticky note and cute around it. We then covered the completed rose up with the sticky note and stamped the leave on either side. Don't worry to stamp partially on the stick note. Once you are done remove the sticky note and the leave appears to be behind the flower. Now we cut from the middle of the cardstock around the lines and the rose to create a frame. 

Next we placed the pixie colored cardstock on the front of our card base and adhered the design paper with the writing right on top of it. The rose frame was placed with foam dots on top of the design paper. A few decorations and this card is done.

Oh and the leaves on the inside are stamped with secondary stamping. You ink you leave up in fern ink, stamp it on the inside and without re-inking, stamp it again right next to it. This way you will get a dark and a light impression of your ink.