Embossed Rose Cards

We have created a few variations of this design, to show you the different kind of effects you can achieve using the same techniques. The raised effect of the rose on this card and the subtle colouring will have everyone wondering how you did it...

Materials and Tools

• Rose stencil
• White embossing paste
• A palette knife
• Decorating chalks
• Bazzill Basics Petalsoft card
• Silver mirri card
• A white card blank
• Masking tape, double sided tape and mini mounting pads

Instructions

1. The first thing we need to do is to create our raised rose image with the embossing paste and stencil. It takes about an hour for the paste to dry, so it helps to plan ahead for this stage...

If you are using embossing paste for the first time, I would recommend trying this on a piece of rough paper first, so that you get used to using the paste before applying it to the card.

Position the stencil on the pink card and fix it in place with a few pieces of masking tape (this is low tack tape that doesn't damage the card when you remove it). When the stencil is firmly held in place, pick up a generous blob of the embossing paste on the underside of the palette knife and spread this across the stencil (you don’t need to press down very hard). Use the back of the palette knife to smooth across the surface of the stencil, making sure that the embossing paste fills all of the gaps in the stencil. Take off any excess paste with the back of the palette knife and return it to the pot, trying to leave as smooth a surface as possible.

You now need to remove the stencil very carefully. Lift it upwards (but not sideways), so that the stencil gets lifted off the paste without damaging it. Leave the rose image to dry (this takes about an hour).

Handy Hints: Clean the stencil and palette knife in cold water as soon as you have finished, as it is difficult to remove when dry.
I find that if you can remove the excess paste in as few movements of the knife as possible, the finished surface tends to be smoother.

2. We now need to colour in the rose and complete the topper...
Place your stencil over the dried image (it should slot into place perfectly) and fix it in place with masking tape. Use your decorating chalks to colour in the rose red and the leaves and stem green. Remove the stencil when you are done.

3. Cut out the rose, leaving a border around the edge of it (I used a trimmer to do this). Mount this topper onto a rectangle of silver mirri card using double sided tape and then mount this onto another rectangle of the pink card. To complete the card, stick the topper onto a white card blank, using mini mounting pads.

Your card is finished!

Alternatives:

Pink and White Rose Card
We used a darker shade of card for this one (Bazzill Basics Romance) and didn't colour in the rose, leaving it white. We then mounted the rose topper onto Bazzill Basics Petunia and silver mirri card and stuck this topper onto a white card blank with mini mounting pads as before.

Rose and hearts card
You can put the embossing paste directly onto an ivory card blank and colour this in, as before. We then used an embossing light box and embossing tool to go around the oval edge of the rose stencil, which frames the rose in an oval border. We then punched out two hearts (using one of our large punches) and coloured these in with chalks and stuck them down with mini mounting pads underneath the rose.