…and the whole world opens up to her. Hi! Emily here with you today with a pair of projects that feature a few of my favorite things: books, flowers, and watercoloring.

For my first project, I decided to use the fabulous new City Girls: Book Life with the Haute Books stamp set. I stamped the books along the edge of a piece of linen card stock using Crystal Pewter ink, then fussy cut them out. I used that as a guide for the placement of the flower bouquet from the Book Life set to create a cascade of flowers down the front of the card base. I stamped that with Versafine, then clear heat embossed it. I watercolored the flowers and the background with my Daniel Smith watercolors.

I stamped the stylish reader using Versafine as well, and again watercolored her with my Daniel Smith  watercolors. I fussy cut her out, then popped both her and the books up on the card front with dimensional adhesive. The last step was to add a sentiment strip over the top of her legs. I love the sentiment, too; “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” SO true.

For my next project, I used the lovely Summer Blooms and the coordinating die to create a card with lots of monochromatic color. You know how monochromatic makeup is all over the runway these days? Well, I decided to try to create my own monochromatic look with my card today. I started by heat embossing the beautiful floral image a few times on some watercolor paper using The Ton’s Rose Gold Embossing Powder. Wanting to keep in with the pink/red color scheme, I watercolored all of the florals in shades of mauve-y pink and blush using my Daniel Smith watercolors, then added a wine colored wash in the background. I also added the same wine color around the edge of my Summer Blooms die cut, because that white edge on all of that color would have really bothered me.  (haha!) 

Next, I die cut the beautifully scripty hugs word die and covered it with Versamark, dipped it in the Rose Gold Embossing Powder, and heated it, then repeated the process to have a custom Rose Gold die cut. I also heat embossed the sentiment from Chandelier using the Rose Gold Embossing Powder onto a strip of vellum. I trimmed some of the flowers off of the edge of the Summer Blooms die cut, popped it up with dimensional adhesive, and adhered my greeting down. A smattering of sequins finished it off.

Well, that’s all for me today! I hope you enjoyed these cards! Have a fabulous weekend, friends!