Turning Summer Flowers into Fall Florals

Hi everyone! Today I’m sharing a colorful fall floral card with a bit of a vintage, rustic feel. I used bright reds and yellows for the flowers, but balanced those bold colors with a more weathered background and lots of texture.

The starting point for this card was the Spellbinders Daisy Shower Press Plate By Yana Smakula. And even though the flowers are technically daisies, I decided not to treat them as daisies at all.

Daisies make me think more of spring and summer, but the flowers in this design can also resemble asters or gerberas depending on how they’re colored. So I basically rebranded my daisies for fall. 😊 With bright reds and yellows combined with a more weathered background, they took on a completely different personality.

CREATING THE VINTAGE BETTERPRESS BACKGROUND

The Daisy Shower Press Plate is an interesting design because most of the plate is solid. The background gets inked while the flowers remain lighter, but the plate still adds all of the details within the petals and flower centers.

I didn’t want the background to be very dark or perfectly solid. I was going for something softer and more weathered, so I started by inking up the plate with the Altenew Lemon Ice Fresh Dye Ink from the Citrus Punch Fresh Dye Ink color family. Lemon Ice is one of the lightest yellows I have, which made it a good starting point. BetterPress plates can transfer quite a lot of color, and I wanted to keep this background light.

Next, I used Altenew Espresso Fresh Dye Ink, but instead of applying it directly from the ink pad, I picked it up with a blending tool and applied it selectively to the flower areas of the press plate. I wanted those petal and center details to be much darker than the Lemon Ice impression.

Of course, some Espresso ended up on the background around the flowers too. Normally that might be something I’d try to avoid, but here it actually worked perfectly with the rustic look I wanted. After that, I impressed a white panel with this two-color inked up plate by running it through my Platinum Die-Cutting Machine.

I then applied Lemon Ice Fresh Dye Ink over the entire plate again and made a second pass through the die-cutting machine. The idea was similar to ink blending: when you’re blending several colors, sometimes going back over an area with the lighter color helps soften the transition. This final yellow impression helped integrate some of that uneven brown around the flowers instead of leaving it looking like accidental stray ink.

Throughout this process, I kept both the plate and cardstock in exactly the same positions so all of the impressions would line up.

The result wasn’t perfectly clean—and that was exactly the point.

TURNING THE DAISIES INTO FALL FLOWERS

Once the pressed background was finished, I colored the flowers with the coordinating Spellbinders Daisy Shower Layering Stencil and Altenew Fresh Dye Inks.

I chose bright yellow and red for the flowers and even gave a couple of them a combination of yellow and red petals. For the reds, I used Coral Red and Cherry Sweet Fresh Dye Inks from the Carnival Magic Fresh Dye Ink color family.

The yellow flowers were colored with Fresh Lemon and Honey Drizzle Fresh Dye Inks from the Pocketful Of Sunshine Fresh Dye Ink color family.

For the foliage, I used Mossy Meadow and Green Opal Fresh Dye Inks.

For the flower centers, I used Rocky Shore and Mocha Fresh Dye Inks from the Coffee Break Fresh Dye Ink color family.

The stencil separates the different petals, but it doesn’t create multiple shading layers within each individual petal. I wanted a little more dimension, so I used two shades for each color. After applying the lighter ink, I came back with the darker shade and concentrated it mainly around the bases of the petals.

I used the Altenew Mini Blending Brush Set for the lighter shades and the Altenew Micro Blending Brush Set for the darker ones. The smaller tool made it easier to stay within those little areas, and it also gave me a more concentrated application of color. That small amount of shading made the flowers look much less flat without adding another complicated step.

ADDING MORE OF THE WEATHERED LOOK

After the stenciling was finished, I blended Mocha Fresh Dye Ink around the outside of the panel. Darkening the edges gave the background a more finished, aged appearance while keeping the center lighter and drawing the eye toward the flowers.

I also pressed some Espresso Fresh Dye Ink onto my work surface, diluted it with a little water, and splattered it over the panel with a brush.

At this point, the floral background could easily have been the entire card. There is already plenty happening in the design, and adding another floral element would probably have made it too busy.

But I have this thing where, even if I’ve spent plenty of time creating a background, when that’s the only thing on the card I somehow feel “guilty”—as if I’m supposed to do something else to it. 😄

This is where the Spellbinders A2 Ornate Molded Frame 3D Embossing Folder By Yana Smakula came in.

ADDING TEXTURE WITHOUT ADDING BUSYNESS

I embossed the finished panel with the A2 Ornate Molded Frame 3D Embossing Folder, and I think this folder is quickly becoming one of my favorites.

The ornate frame is elegant and adds noticeable dimension and interest, but it doesn’t compete with what’s already happening on the background. That’s exactly what I wanted here. It gave me that extra something I felt the card needed without requiring another focal element or making an already colorful design even busier.

And now I kind of want to use this folder on every background.

After embossing, I adhered the panel to a white card base.

To finish the card, I went through my stash of pre-made sentiment labels and chose a dark mahogany Sending Thanks sentiment. The color coordinated beautifully with the darker tones already in the background without covering much of the floral design.

I added a few Red Cosmos Enamel Dots and Citrus Punch Enamel Dots as the final embellishment.

WATCH THE SHORT

I also created a short video showing how this colorful fall floral card came together. You can watch it below if you’d like to see the project in motion.

I really like how this card ended up balancing two things that don’t necessarily seem like they should go together: the flowers are quite bright and colorful, while the background and finishing details give the whole design a more vintage, rustic feeling.

And those spring-and-summer daisies? With the right colors, I think they adapted to fall just fine. 🍂🌼

SUPPLIES

If you’re curious about the supplies I used, you can find everything listed below.

Some of the links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you shop through them — at no extra cost to you.

You can use the letter codes to shop from your favorite stores: Simon Says Stamp (SSS), Altenew (AN), Scrapbook.com (SC), Amazon (AZ), Spellbinders (SB), Papertrey Ink (PTI), ScrapbookPal (SBP).

I really appreciate your support 🤍

Spellbinders Daisy Shower Press + Foil Plate And Stencil Bundle By Yana Smakula Click A Shop: SB | SBP	Spellbinders Daisy Shower Press Plate By Yana Smakula Click A Shop: SSS | SC | SB | SBP	Spellbinders A2 Ornate Molded Frame 3D Embossing Folder By Yana Smakula Click A Shop: SSS | SC | SB | SBP	Altenew One-Go: Solid Sentiment Strips Die Click A Shop: AN | SBP	Altenew One-Go: Solid Sentiment Strips 3 Press Plates/Foil Plates (Gratitude Edition) Click A Shop: SSS | AN | SC | SBP
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