Vintage Rose Birthday cards

I haven't posted cards for quite a while, I haven't actually been making much in the way of cards.  I have been doing other crafts, I have been having a go at doing some mixed media canvases, which I have loved, and it has been a great break, and I have come back to card making zinging with ideas.  

I have been feeling like getting into a bit more stamping, as I have moved away from it lately, and do a lot more die cutting.  A few months ago I purchased the stamp set called Vintage roses by Altenew.  This is a stamp set where you build up the rose in layers using a progression of inkpads from a light shade to a deeper shade.  Now I don't have many inkpads, and here in New Zealand there are not a lot of choices in things like the shadow inks and pigment inks in colours.  A only ones that seem to be available are the Tim Holz distress inks or just the black stamp pads in various different brands and versamark, or I can buy the Brilliance ink pads but they only seem to be available in pearlised colours which don't seem to be suitable for this method.  Anyway I did manage to put together a selection of pinks and mauves, but I have struggled to find yellows and blues in the right shades to do these roses.  I will keep hunting and trying to come up with some.  

Now I also have to say, I didn't find it very easy at first, doing the stamps on top of each other, and getting them lined up, I kept throwing attempts away, until I managed to do some I was happy with.  There are some great you tube videos to watch on others using them, which were very helpful, as there were some that did them in a different order, so eventually I found a method that worked for me.  Another thing I seemed to do quite often was I would somehow get ink somewhere else on the card I was doing my arrangement with. I think it was from my acrylic blocks, as I only have about 4 blocks and some of them were quite big, so not very suitable for doing this method.  So for those ones that I had got ink somewhere else on the white card, I have had to strategically place some sequins or have had to cut them out and mount them on another piece of card.  Anyway, I got some I was happy with.  

So here is two cards I have made with a selection of pinks to plum, and mauve to purple.  

This one I did an arrangement of roses in different sizes on one piece of card, and then stamped some more randomly on a strip of scrap card, so that I could create this border.  Then some strategically places sequins and clear gems to bling it up a little.

This one I have done two strips of the roses and leaves stamped randomly, and then I have cut a central panel with two of the spellbinder A2 scalloped border dies, a piece of pink ribbon going through the centre, and finally the sentiment done on the middle die of the Spellbinders Radiant Rectangles die set  A few pearls to finish it off.  It has made such a pretty card.  

I love this stamp set, I love all things vintage and flowery, so this combines it perfectly.  I would love to get some more of the Altenew stamp sets, as they are a little bit different, but it is so expensive to have them sent from America, the international postage is very prohibitive.  I will have to wait and see if I get some money for my birthday, and I might treat my self to another one!  Here's hoping!!