A new one-layer card challenge this week at Less is More. You have to do everything on the card blank. No die cuts, no layers, and minimal embellishments (if at all). It’s quite a tough assignment for those that like plenty of frills on their cards, but it makes for the desired clean and simple card design. This time, the theme is ‘flowers’ and I came up with this:

I started by stamping the image off the side of the card in archival ink so that it would not bleed with subsequent layers. I then masked off the image and blended the background with distress ink. Move the masking to create the shadow, again blending distress ink to colour. Finally, colour the dark areas of the flowers and leaves with watercolour pencils and drag the colour out with a water brush to shade the petals.

Used to make these flowers pop

• Stampendous Cling Rubber Stamp: Cling Wild Roses [CRR191]
• Ranger Archival Ink: Jet Black
• Ranger / Tim Holtz Distress Ink: Antique Linen / Hickory Smoke
• Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour Pencils
• Sentiment from Craftwork Cards (discontinued)
• Stix2 Anything Stencil Tape (low tack masking tape)
• A6 white card blank