I had been wanting to make a card with a dark background for a while, but I did not want it to be too masculine . So when I got the Water Lily stamp set from Lesia Zgharda Design  I thought it was ideal to use for this card.

I started by stamping and heat embossing the flowers on Bristol smooth surface cardstock. I chose gold embossing powder because I like the way it looks with pink, and also to add a bit of shine and elegance to the card.

This time, I coloured the lilies with my new Zig Clean Colour Real Brush watercolours, I got my set weeks ago but I hadn’t had the chance to colour with them, so this was the perfect occasion to put them to work. The colouring technique was basically the same I used with other water based markers, starting by adding the colour on the  side of the petals where I wanted more of it, then, with a water brush, I worked the colour down to the areas I wanted more light. I did this on each petal of each flower, and I mainly used two tones of pink. Water lilies are usually floating on a bed of leaves, so I coloured in the same manner the bottom of each flower in green for a more realistic look.

Once I was finished with all the flowers, I thought they still needed more highlights and shadows, so with a sharp colour pencil in a darker shade of pink, I added a few strokes on the centre of each flower. Then I fussy cut each flower and set them aside.

I cut a 5 ¼ by 4-inch piece of heavy black cardstock and arranged the flowers on top, once I had a layout I was happy with, I stamped and heat embossed the stems directly on the base cardstock and placed the flowers on each stem.

The sentiment is from one of my very first clear stamp sets I ever bought, probably over 10 years ago, after a few tries, I decided that gold embossing on white cardstock looked the best. Finally, I placed it on an A2 white card.

For me, a card is never completed without embellishments, so I randomly sprinkled a mix of white gouache and gold watercolour (a toothbrush is the best tool to achieve the splattered effect) and for the final touch a few iridescent crystal jewels from Studio Katia.

It was so nice to receive the warm support of my fellow crafters on this card; this is by far one of the big pluses of being part of this awesome community. I hope you like it just as much!

Created with love,

Monica.