Cottage Garden Lilies

I am planning on making a wedding card with lilies for my SIL to give to her niece, Stephanie.  Turns out that Stephanie's favorite flowers are lilies and her favorite color is pink (those are my favorites too!!).  So I started making a card this morning and got carried away with the coloring.  At first, I had these beautifully soft, delicate pink lilies with pale green leaves on a white background - gorgeous!  But thought, what if I made them a little deeper pink ... so after a little playing, they were medium pink with dark green leaves.  What if I added some shading ... some more playing and now they were dark pink (almost red) and the white background was too stark so I added sponging.  I love the end result ... but not the look I wanted for a wedding card, so I turned it into an everyday card.  This is such a beautiful stamp (Rubber-Art Stamps) that you can't go wrong no matter what color you make the lilies.  Hope you like. 

"Cottage Garden Lilies"

 

 

Stamps:  Lilies (Rubber-Art Stamps); Cottage Garden (sentiment) (SU!)

Paper:  Soft Suede, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White (SU!)

Ink:  Rose Red, Riding Hood Red, Old Olive, So Saffron, Soft Suede; Regal Rose Stampin' Write marker; Always Artichoke re-inker (SU!), Versamark

Accessories & Tools:  White embossing powder, heat tool, sponges, small artist's paint brush

* * * * *

I started by inking my main image with Versamark and stamping onto Whisper White cardstock.  I embossed the image in white.

Since I added so many layers of different colors, I'm not exactly sure how to get the colors of the lilies I ended up with.  Originally I used Pink Pirouette re-inker with lots of water and a paint brush, but then added Stampin' Write marker Pretty in Pink on top, then finally Regal Rose Stampin' Write marker.  I think the Regal Rose is so much darker than the other two pinks that you could just color the lilies with that directly to start.  I used a small eye-makeup sponge to add shading on the petals with Rose Red ink.  I used Always Artichoke re-inker with a little water added and painted in the stems and leaves.

I sponged So Saffron around the middle and top of the cardstock and sponged Old Olive at the bottom and up the sides a little.  I then sponged Soft Suede along all the edges and added more at the four corners.  I did the same with the background for the sentiment, which is stamped in Riding Hood Red ink.

I layered the cardstock as shown in the picture above, popping up the main image panel with dimensionals for added interest.