rose garden sympathy

It's hard to see the Wink of Stella that these roses were painted with. I used SU's Rose Garden, Timeless Textures and reinkers for these cards.

thoughts and prayers

I'm still loving the spring catty's rose garden stamps and dies which are gonna be in the new annual! YAAAYYYY!

all about roses

These cards are all very different from each other, but they have one common element. They were created with the Rose Garden and Rose Wonder stamps and dies bundle. The card above was water colored after the image was embossed in clear on watercolor paper.

 

Above, is another die-cut and water colored rose card. I love how these images lend themselves to simple elegance. Below is a partial die-cut rose. Again, simply elegant.

ombre botanicals

The brayer came in handy with this ombre design. It's fairly simple and straight forward. I left off the sentiment so I could quick add it when I know what occasion I will use it for.

wedding rose

In between my other card designs I find myself often reverting back to my favorite Rose Garden Thinlits dies. Here's a quick and clean and simple card created by layering pink and white roses and adding vellum leaves. So easy. So effortless. So VERY elegant!!!

in which we celebrate basic gray and more new stuff!

I know grays are "in". But I've never gotten myself to love gray. It is so, um, GRAY!!! Sorry to all of you who adore "GRAY"!!! I can't wait till the fad is over. But meanwhile....MEANWHILE....here are a few samples of "GRAY" cards I am actually quite proud to show you! I've also managed to use the Bloomin' Hearts die in a way totally unrelated to love and Valentine's and love and hearts and love! (Can you tell I'm also not a fan of Valentines? And I agree that it makes NO SENSE, but that's how it is!)
This card (above and directly below) uses dies from the Circles, Bloomin' Hearts, and Rose Garden I believe. The circle cut-out peeks into the middle of the card. And I LOVE it!! Gray and all!!

I've seen quite a few different versions of the card (below) with the long stemmed flowers. I've only seen it on Kraft and browns so I figured I'd try GRAY!!! It turned out rather pretty, huh? Maybe I'm starting to see a bit of potential in GRAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!

rose garden (more sympathy and caring)

I have a difficult time keeping my cards SIMPLE, so lately that's been my on-going challenge: simplify, simplify, simplify. And this Rose Garden stamp set helps me so beautifully. It almost makes itself into a card and you need very little other embellishment. On both of these cards I embossed the rose image in clear and then sponged ink on top. (emboss resist technique, my favorite of all time!) 

Notice the seaweed image from By The Tide. Wow is that ever one versatile stamp. Here it looks like the airy asparagus fern used in bouquets. It also works well to put a crackle effect on, say, a teapot or something similar. An aged look...but that's not what this is about! Ha! Below you see the inside of this card. I just love love love the sentiments on Rose Wonder. So caring.... 

As you can see, I'm replenishing my sympathy card supply! Soon we'll be onto something else. Promise!

Ombre Rose

My friend Jane from the White Orchid sent me the most gorgeous Christmas card in teals and whites. She used this watercolor ombre background and it was so beautiful I decided to try it myself. (Hi Jane!) I'm not certain what method she used for her background, but I used a few drops of three different shades (from light to dark) of pinks and reds and then I used a very very wet aqua painter to paint from light to dark on water color paper. I love how the white rose die-cut pops out on the red background. Below I added some pearls to dress it up (and to cover a glue smudge, but you don't know that! LOL!)

rose garden (my latest crush!)

Okay! I know I fall in love with every new catalogue that comes out, but surely this one is the best yet! Just LOOK will you? Aren't those rose garden dies THE BEST???!!!  I haven't even used the coordinating Rose Wonder stamp set---yet. But I can't wait. It has such lovely caring sentiments to go along with the images. But about these two cards here: I am so glad I kept my Manhattan Flowers TEF from long ago. It coordinates with these dies as though they were made to go together. Forever....sighhhhh......

I water colored the background by misting the water color paper and then just dabbing on a few drops of reinker with my aqua pen and letting them blend naturally. With the circle dies I cut a large-ish circle into the face paper and embossed it. Then assembled the whole thing. Simple really.

This one's my favorite! I just like the colors better for whatever reason!