Hi guys! I’m so excited to share this card with you today because it’s actually the one that started my recent obsession with using Altenew’s marketing materials as focal points. You might remember that cute little custom “Evergreen Beauty” stamp set Altenew sent me for their anniversary—the one with my very own name on it! Well, in that same order, they included some marketing flyers that featured that exact same beautiful rose image, and I just couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.

I started by cutting out the rose image from the flyer using a stitched rectangle die. I had to fussy-cut around the flower, but I managed to get it exactly as I wanted it. Because the flyer material is quite glossy, my old die-cutting plates left some marks on it that I wasn’t too thrilled about. To fix that, I decided to lean into the texture and ran it through with one of my favorite older Altenew cover plates. It added a gorgeous, intentional pattern that completely hid the stray marks and made the whole piece look much more sophisticated.

For the base of my focal element, I pulled a very old tag die from my stash and mounted the textured rose piece on top. I really wanted to incorporate the actual stamp set too, so I stamped the matching rose image directly onto my card base and lined the tag up perfectly so the leaves look like they are peeking out from behind it. It adds such a nice layer of depth without adding too much bulk!

To finish the scene, I added the “hello friend” sentiment, which I framed with a cute little postage-stamp-style die-cut. I also found a few gold heart die-cuts left over from a previous Valentine’s project and tucked them in for a bit of shine. To balance out all that green and white, I added a scrap of patterned paper along the side and a delicate pink die-cut border. And of course, the best part is the back of the card, where I got to use my “Created by Varada Sharma” stamp for the first time! It really is the little things that make this hobby so much fun.

Hugs!
~Varada