Making Your Own Rose Garden

Growing up, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house being amazed at everything growing in their garden. They had vegetables, fruits, flowers – everything. I can remember helping my grandmother pick whatever vegetables we were going to have for dinner that evening. To a small child, it felt like a jungle! My grandfather was a botanist and was blessed with the ability to grow anything. After my grandfather passed, my grandmother slowly did away with the vegetables. And eventually most of the flowers went too as she was no longer able to care for them.

When my husband and I bought our house years ago, I had fantasies that I had inherited my grandfather’s green thumb. I thought, now’s my turn to grow all those wonderful things! Did you catch that key word: fantasies? I quickly realized that I couldn’t grow anything to save my life. In fact, the plant I had all through college was now dying. (My former roommate admitted to me that she’d been taking care of it all along, fixing whatever mistakes I made.) About a year after moving in, my husband asked me to stop “taking care of” the back yard because even the grass was dying. Oops.

The previous owners had planted some lovely rose bushes in the backyard. They were beautiful for a short while. I quickly gave up on growing flowers because I just didn’t have the green thumb to care for them properly. My mom tried to help me but honestly I was a lost cause when it came to flowers. And then I found out I couldn’t grow vegetables either. Or fruit.

Instead of spending my time pulling weeds, I turned my attention to paper flowers. Stampin Up does flowers well. So well that flower stamp sets are plentiful in our catalogs.  In fact, many would say “why do we need another flower set?”. Yet, every time we have get a new one, I think it’s so much better than last year’s set. In the new Occasions Catalog we have a stamp set and die set that coordinate beautifully – Rose Wonder and Rose Garden Thinlet Dies. I love roses! They are my second favorite flower (my fave is tulips). When I saw the Rose Garden Thinlet Die in the catalog, I knew this would be perfect for the inlay die cut technique. This technique is a bit time consuming but the results are fabulous. This is the finished card. Look at those swirls in the petals!

This is going to be long, but I really want you to know how you can recreate this stunning effect yourself! How To Inlay Die Cut:

1. Pick a couple different colors of cardstock for your die cuts. For the rose die, you’ll need one color for the rose outline and then a second color for all the petals in the flower. Then you’ll do the same for the leaves – one color for the outline and one color for the inside of the leaves.
2. When you cut out the petals and the insides for the leaves, you’ll want to carefully transfer them to a place on your desk, where you can leave them just as they came out of the die. The new die brush we sell is perfect for this because it pops out all those little pieces quickly. Set this aside for now.
3. For the outline piece, you’ll need to remove all those little petal pieces. Again the die brush is perfect for this because it pops them out so quickly. You don’t need to keep all the little pieces. Just keep the outline.
4. Once your outline is ready to use, flip it over to the back side. You will want to run your Tear & Tape adhesive across all the openings in the back so you can add back in your petals.  Do not peel off the backing of your tape yet.
5. Flip your outline back over the right way. You should see the tape through all of the little openings.
6. Get your diecut with the petals back out. You’ll need to pop each petal back into your rose outline. The petals should stay in place because you have the tape across the back.
7. Once you’re done, flip it over so it’s face down. Then peel off all the tape backings so you can stick it down on your card.
8. Lastly, embellish your card as desired!

You’ll notice for my card, I did the rose in Blushing Bride and the leaves in Mint Macaron. So for those doing the math, I actually cut out four of these dies – two for the rose and two for the leaves. And that beautiful swirly paper? That is the Perfectly Artistic Designer Series paper that is FREE right now with Sale-Abration. If you buy the stamp set and die bundle, it’s $49.25. Your only $.75 from that FREE pack of paper. If you haven’t tried the Tear & Tape Adhesive, then you definitely want to get that. It’s $7.00 which will put you right over that threshold so you qualify for the FREE pack of paper. Or, you can always add card stock, ribbon, pearls, or envelopes to your order. Do not wait to get that Perfectly Artistic paper! It is available only until 2/15.

Ps. I finally did learn how to take care of a plant. But since we live in Southern California, the grass has been switched out for faux grass (faux sounds more classy). I even have several succulents along with some Orchids that I’ve managed to keep alive for several years now. Orchids are awesome. They love to be ignored, which is something I can totally do!