Anniversary Card with Flower Market Cricut Cartridge

I saw a picture recently with a charcoal gray background and colorful flowers over the top. The flowers were highlighted with white strokes. I wanted to see if I could recreate the look and am mostly happy with the result.

To begin, I cut five tulips using CTMH Flower Market cartridge. I used Willow, Bashful, Blossom, and Raspberry paper. (All of these colors except Bashful come in the Flower Market bundle but can be ordered individually here.)  Once the images were cut, I started adding streaks of white with a gel pen. It's times like these that I wish I was more artistic. They seem very rough and haphazard, but overall they are the effect I was going for.

Once the flowers and leaves were highlighted, I glued them together using the chisel-tipped Glue Pen, alternating which side of the cardstock I used to get some more shading and to change up the look of the tulips. Note in the close up picture that the far left tulip has the broader petals of the top two layers on the left where they broader petals on the tulip one place over has the broader top two petals on the right.  You'll also see the subtle color difference between these two top layers. I'm LOVING the dual tones of our cardstock now that I've started to really play with it. (See this post for another example.) I didn't use all five of the flowers, and some of them were only two or three layers instead of all four. I only used three of the stems, the center one in the lighter tone of Willow dual tone cardstock.

Once the petals were glued together, I glued the entire bouquet to a piece of Charcoal cardstock cut to 2.75 x 5.5. I then added more dots and strokes of white with the gel pen.

To embellish, I added Basic Ribbon in the grey on white. I was fortunate in that the word in the end of my roll was "amazing." I wrapped it around the base of the flowers, securing the ends behind the Charcoal panel with tape. I then glued the entire panel to a card base. I was going to search for stamps to create a full sentiment and then decided it would be quicker to just hand write it. Again, I wish I could do fancy, swooshy-swirly writing like a calligrapher, but my scrawl matched the rustic feel of the flowers. That's what I'm telling myself, so please don't correct my delusion.

Off to my writing cave. Wish me luck because I've come down with a sore throat and cough. I'm drinking copious amounts of tea and orange juice thanks to my beloved husband who went grocery shopping not once, but twice this weekend. Chivalry at its finest!

Until next time,
Becca