How To Create A Single Layer Card With Faux Layers

I love single layer cards and I’ve been challenging myself to create more single layer cards.

They use less resources and don’t require extra postage!

I belong to several design teams and they often have sketch challenges that require a card to have several layers. The many layered cards tend to be the ones that I don’t like a month after I make them. When I’m sorting through my card stash, the multilayered cards tend to be the ones that never get sent.

This week’s Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge is one of those sketches. In fact, it’s a layout I’ve used more than a dozen times. I decided to create a single layer card that looked layered and satisfied the card sketch layout requirements!

I have a couple of new Altenew stamp sets that I wanted to play with. The first is called Celebrate Us and it is a collaboration between Altenew and Pink Fresh Studios. It’s a beauty. I love it because you can just use the outline stamp to color with alcohol markers or watercolor. Plus, you have the option to use the two layers to do all the coloring for you. That’s what I chose to do on today’s card.

The other stamp set is a background stamp that I’ve had since Altenew came out with it. This is the Dainty Swiss Dots stamp set. This is a fun one because you can stamp it once for a pretty background, or twice by sliding it over the second time and stamping in between the first dots for a pretty effect. You will see that on my card today.

I absolutely love this card. I used an Altenew ink set that came out around the beginning of the year-ish and I haven’t played with it enough! This color combination is a stunner!

These are the Tranquility inks and the set includes: Dark Night, Nimbus, Cloudy Sky, and Misty Morning.

To create this card, I masked the center and then stamped the Dainty Swiss Dots twice on the card front. I stamped once in Nimbus and once in Misty Morning.

Then I removed the mask and stamped the outline stamp in Dark Night. I used the large solid layered stamp next in Nimbus. I had intended to use one of the lighter shades, but this was a happy accident. The large solid stamp needs to be stamped in the lighter of the two colors you intend to use on the two layers. This meant that I had to stamp the smaller top layer in a darker color, so I stamped it in Dark Night.

It’s a WOW! color combo!

I used Chamomile ink for the flower center and then I used the Misty Morning for the leaves. My original plan had been to use a green for the leaves, but it just needed that lovely greenish gray Misty Morning for those leaves.

I added the Thinking of You sentiment from the Dainty Swiss Dots set and stamped that in the Dark Night ink. I added some Navy and gold Washi tape down the sides of the center panel and added some clear drops to finish it off.

Check out the sketch that I started with:

This is a classic card sketch and this layout is used all the time. I just wanted to put my own twist on it. I’m sure that many people will add some patterned paper to the background and add a piece of colored cardstock to layer behind that center panel and finish it off with a sentiment strip.

I love my finished card and I’m happy that I pulled out one of my background stamps to change this up. I also love this color set and I will be using it on so many more projects!

This is one of the easiest stamp sets to layer. I find myself getting frustrated trying to layer the really intricate stamp sets that need to be just so. This needs to be just so, but more parts of it aligned making it easier to actually get it lined up.

My next project will involve using this with some masking to add multiple flowers on one card. This is so pretty and so easy to layer!

Here is a video of the process:

Supply List:

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