April Showers Bring May Flowers: Celebrate Rose Corner Edition!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! After a whirlwind of fun teaching at a Simon Says Stamp booth at CREATE, I am back home and trying to get back into the swing of things at a little bit less frantic pace. (I spent several days prior energetically prepping to be gone from my family for four days) I meant to blog this project while I was gone, but I had too much fun teaching and was exhausted by the end of the days, so there’s been a bit of a lull here on my blog as a result. But I’m back with some fun inspiration for my April Showers Bring May Flowers series, this time using my Celebrate Rose Corner illustration for Simon Says Stamp. This was one of my first illustrations for Simon Says Stamp, and it’s still one of my favorites! It’s such fun to play with older supplies using different mediums and color palettes. I chose to use a soft peach melba color combination for today’s project. Let’s get started with the details!

To begin my project, I stamped the large Celebrate Rose Corner stamp on an A7 panel of Arches Hot Press watercolor paper, then heat embossed the image with Hero Arts’s Iridescent Lavender embossing powder. This embossing powder is gorgeous and creates a subtle iridescent sheen on your embossed image. It looks marvelous on both colored cardstock and white cardstock alike. I like to use white or clear embossing powder when I want to create a semi-no-line-coloring look. The white lines are a bit softer than the stark black lines created with typical stamping. However, because of these white lines on the white paper, I do like to start watercoloring the background first so that I have a better visual on where the flowers are located.

To begin my watercoloring, I taped my panel down to my watercolor board to reduce warping, then used Karin Brushmarker Pro markers to add soft peach and pink around the edges of my embossed image. To create that dreamy watercolor look, I scribble the color on my glass craft mat, then dilute the color with lots of water. I add lots of layers of color, allowing each layer to dry between applications, which helps create the subtle layers of color. I used the same colors for the roses to create these pretty peachy roses, paying extra attention to the shadowed areas. Once I had finished adding color to the image, I allowed it to dry completely before beginning to assemble my card front.

After allowing my watercolor panel to dry completely, I die cut a frame using the A7 Nesting Frame Dies and Rose Gold Metallic foil cardstock from Simon Says Stamp. The soft rosy foil cardstock complements the peach and pink tones in the watercolored image. I trimmed the watercolored panel down to 4″ x 6″, then selected a coordinating frame and adhered it to the watercolor panel using liquid adhesive. I added the framed watercolored panel to a full size A7 panel of pearlescent white cardstock, creating a shimmery white mat around the edge. I heat embossed a sentiment from All About You onto some heavyweight vellum using pink glitter embossing powder, then die cut the sentiment with the coordinating die. To add a little extra interest to the sentiment, I die cut some foliage from the Etched Meadow Flower and Leaves using pale pink brushed foil cardstock. I nestled the foliage behind the sentiment, then added some Taffy Pawsitively Dazzling Gems for extra sparkle!