Distressed Rose

I had a LOT of messy fun making this card - not to mention cleaning up afterwards!

It's a first outing for this lovely rose stamp and sentiment from the Craftascope bundle I won earlier in the year.

I started with the image because I knew it would need a LOT of drying time. (I still resorted to the heat gun in the end because I'm so impatient.). I stamped it onto watercolour card and then, one section at a time, roughly filled in the flower or leaf with a water brush and sprinkled Brushos over, lightly blending the crystals and drawing them out towards the edges with a damp brush. The lighter red crystals blended a little too easily, the darker ones I used for the rose on the left  gave the look I was really aiming for.  Each section had to dry completely before moving on to the next, so that I could tap the stray crystals of pigment off the dry areas.Once it was all dry, I re-wet the brush I'd used for blending the red paint and flicked it randomly over the whole image to add some spatters, then tore the image roughly to shape and set it aside.

For the background layers, I used three different embossing folders and red, pink and purple distress inks, roughly smoothing the ink pads over the debossed side of the folder and lightly spritzing with water before embossing white card.  Again, I tore each piece to the shape and size I wanted to use.

I lightly blended red ink around the edge of my card and stamped the sentiment onto white card, finishing the edges with a distressing tool, then assembled the whole thing finishing with a bow made from two layers of organza ribbon.

I am sharing this with

Allsorts Challenge - Add a Bow 

Fab'n'Funky - Roses

Sweet Stampin - Distressed