Building Orchids for CAS Colours and Sketches

Good morning! Before I start I just want to warn you this is quite a picture heavy post as I am a little bit in love with today's card. As I don't often say that about my own cards I hope you'll excuse the amount of photos! If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram  you'll have seen my Dragonfly post yesterday saying that I often get inspired by nature. Well on my kitchen window sill I have several Orchids and my pink one is currently in flower. Every time I see it I keep thinking I should try and replicate it with my Orchid builder set, obviously nothing is as good as nature itself but I do like my version as well. 

Today's card was also inspired by the sketch challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches I'm not sure why when I saw it I thought of using Orchids but I did!

I had great fun creating this card with the orchid builder stamps and framelits. so I though I would include step by step photos of how I created them to show you how easy it is! First you stamp out all of your layers, I used plain whisper white this time with Berry Burst ink but it would also look good on the shimmery card stock.

Then use the matching dies to cut out all of your layers, I find the magnetic platform really helps, this way I know the borders round my layers are going to be as equal as possible and I won't accidentally cut part of my image off. It might just be me with messy die cuts without the magnetic platform though!

As I wanted a little extra colour on the petals I sponged the edges as well. Then with my pierce mat underneath to give it a soft surface I pushed the edge of my bone folder into each petal section to give it a bit of dimension. This step is not essential but it does make them stand out a bit more.

Then finally glue the layers together, I personally use glue dots between each layer as I can accurately put them where I need them and they're not messy! As a little extra touch I used my wink of Stella pen (seriously cannot get enough of this!!) on the centre of the flower.

For my card I made two of the small Orchids and one of the large ones, I then glued these on a stem cut using the seasonal layers dies. The sentiment came from the Orchid builder set as well and was stamped in Garden Green.

So what do you think? As I said I actually love this card, I think it also helped that I already had a recipient in mind when I started making this. Sometimes without realising it I'll put extra effort into a card if I already know who I'm giving it to.