Flower Box Set by Stampendous

I really like Brilliance Pearlescent inks. I recently tried watercoloring with them and they are neat! You get a shimmery effect.

I have 3 cards I made using the same image from the Flower Box set by Stampendous. I had 3 small scraps of watercolor paper and wondered how a couple of the different Brilliance Pearlescent inks would blend and if I could shade with them too.

I started with Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid on the petal closest to us then used purple to fill in the petal that's behind it. I went back over the first petal with the purple and tried to make the outside area a little darker and blend it in with the Orchid. It worked pretty well and is much easier to see in person.

On the flower stamens I used yellow and then orange around the edges.

I matted all three flowers with black, light orange and again with black. The light orange is the Papermillstore.com match I've found for Stampin' Up!s Apricot Appeal.

For the top card I used the Cuttlebug A2 embossing folders and black grossgrain ribbon and attached that to a basic black A6 sized card body. The purple card stock is from Thepapermillstore.com and is called Purple Medium which matches Stampin' Up!s Orchid Opulence ink beautifully.

The second card I thought a background stamp would look nice with my flower. I decided on Antique Lace by Stampin' Up! - it's been retired for a few years but hey, I like it.

I inked up my Antique Lace background stamp with Brilliance Pearlescent Orchid to match my Purple medium card stock. It's a nice match and gives a kind of shimmer to the background that's subtle.

Next I punched a hole with my 1/4" round hand held punch so I could put organdy ribbon through it. I have one of Stampin' Up!s small slot punches but was afraid I'd break it trying to punch through so many thicknesses of card stock.

I tried dotted organdy ribbon, black with white dots and it didn't quite look right so I tried the solid black and thought it worked pretty well. A little narrower would have been good but I didn't have any.

The "simply friends" stamp is actually two stamps that come in the Flower Box stamp set.

Oh my... I've lost my third card. Oh well, I used the same colors and it had some paper piercing on it that didn't look very good. It was uneven. That's kind of funny! I wonder where it went?? lol