Knitting, Crochet and Crafts

Hello Greeting Card Featuring Simple Flower Motif, Ribbon Bow and Ink Blending

Here’s an idea for making an all-occasion greeting card featuring a simple hand-stamped flower motif, a ribbon bow, a stamped sentiment and a blended ink background.

Hello Greeting Card Featuring Simple Stamped Flower Motif
Hello Greeting Card Featuring Simple Stamped Flower Motif

I was inspired to make this card because the AMAZING people over at Hero Arts are having a challenge with the theme of “Blend It Up”. To fulfill the requirements of the challenge, each project entered must include some ink blending. There are zillions of possible ways to incorporate ink blending into your paper crafts projects; in this particular project, I used ink blending for almost all the papers on the card. The only paper that didn’t have ink blending is the round yellow flower center.

How to Make an All-Occasion Greeting Card Like This One

There are different ways you could approach making a card like this. I tend to make cards in batches, and this approach is different than the approach you’d take if you just want to make a single card.


If you make a lot of paper crafts project, the batch approach is typically going to be the most efficient use of your time and also the most cost-effective use of your supplies — because you waste less ink if you stamp, assembly-line style, without cleaning your stamps in between each impression. I try to stamp the same image using the same ink color at least 10 times before I clean the stamp and move on to stamping a different image or a different color. Later, when I’m ready to put together a card, a scrapbook layout or a planner layout, I have plenty of stamped images to use for making my projects. It speeds up the crafting process tremendously.


If I’m ink blending, I also tend to do that in big batches — making big batches of ink blended papers that I can later use in paper crafts projects. It is easiest to make a bunch of papers at once and let them dry before organizing them in your paper organizers and having them on hand to use.

The background paper I used in this card was made using ink blending techniques. For ink blending, I typically use several different tools and supplies including ink blending tools, misters and sponge brushes. If you’re new to paper crafts, or you don’t know how to do ink blending, I invite you to check out my article on ink blending techniques. That article includes tips and advice for how to get started.

Craft Supplies You’ll Need for Making an All-Occasion Greeting Card Like This One

You can use a mister, water and ink from reinkers for an easy ink blending technique.
You can use a mister, water and ink from reinkers for an easy ink blending technique.
  • Stamps: You’ll need a floral stamp to use as the focal image for your card, a leaf stamp to accent the flower and a sentiment stamp to use for the birthday greeting. The floral stamp and leaf stamp I used here are both from the Simple Flowers Add-On Stamp set by Altenew. The simple “hello” sentiment I used is from the Togetherness stamp set by Hero Arts.
  • I also used a stamp to emulate the look of zigzag stitching on my card. When I started paper crafting many years ago, one of the hot paper craft trends was actually sewing with a sewing machine on your cards and layouts. I used to do that sometimes, and I loved the look of it, but I do not have a sewing machine any more to use for stitching. So I was thrilled to find the zigzag stamp, which does a pretty good job of imitating the look of stitching. This stamp is by BoBunny.
  • Ink Pads: You’ll need multiple ink pads for creating this design; I used a total of 4 ink pads, but you might prefer to use a different number, depending on how you want your project to look. I used Dusty Concord Distress Oxide for stamping the flower petals; Scattered Straw Distress Oxide for stamping the flower center; Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide for stamping the leaf; and Altenew’s Frayed Leaf Crisp Dye Ink for stamping the faux zigzag stitch.
  • Reinkers: I used all the reinkers you see pictured above to make my batch of ink blended papers. This batch of papers includes Milled Lavender Distress Oxide, Robin’s Egg Distress Oxide, Scattered Straw Distress Oxide, Bundled Sage Distress Oxide, Pearlescent Sky Brilliance Ink, and Jelly Bean Green dye ink by Gina K Designs. I made these papers by diluting the inks with water, putting a couple of colors together in the mister, squirting the papers at random, and then adding a couple more ink colors to the mister and squirting the papers at random again. I did a bunch of blending and squirting like that until the papers were covered with ink. It resulted in some splattery, splotchy papers that are fairly light in color, which is what I was hoping for. This type of background makes an ideal surface for stamping on directly — which is what I did here.
  • White cardstock
  • You’ll need ribbon for accenting your card with a bow; I used a sage green colored wide cotton twill ribbon.
  • Scoring Tool for Paper such as a scoring board or bone folder
  • Decorative Scissors – I used Fiskars Paper Edgers in the Mini Scallop design, but there are many other possible designs that would work for this project. However, note that a small, discreet design works better for this particular project than a bigger, bolder design would.
  • Paper cutter and scissors
  • Adhesive: You can use the adhesive of your choice to put this project together. I used Cherry Tape and Glue Dots for mine.

    • How to Make This All-Occasion Greeting Card

    Hello Greeting Card Featuring Simple Flower Motif and Ink Blending
    Hello Greeting Card Featuring Simple Flower Motif and Ink Blending

    Make a card base by cutting, scoring and folding a piece of ink blended paper to the size you want it.


    Set the card base aside and work on the floral image. First, stamp your flower petals using Dusty Concord Distress Oxide ink or the ink color of your choice. I stamped onto ink-blended paper, which creates a subtly textured design that is quite lovely.


    Cut around each flower petal using decorative scissors. I used Fiskars Paper Edgers in the mini scallop design.


    Stamp your flower center onto yellow cardstock. I keep small paper scraps that have had interesting techniques applied to them – so I already had stashed a small scrap of yellow cardstock that I had stenciled with shimmery Nuvo Embellishment Mousse. I stamped the flower center using Scattered Straw Distress Oxide ink; then I freehand drew a spiral on top of that using a gold metallic Sakura Gelly Roll pen. Then I fussy-cut around it with ordinary scissors. You do not have to get this crazy making your flower center, but I happen to think it was worth the effort to do all this for my particular project – because I think the embellished flower center makes the flower look much more special than it would have otherwise.


    Stamp your leaf onto ink-blended paper using Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide ink or the ink color of your choice. Fussy cut around the leaf using decorative scissors.


    Attach all the pieces of your flower to a small square of ink-blended paper. Stamp the zigzag stamp around the edges of the paper using Frayed Leaf Crisp Dye Ink or the ink color of your choice.


    Attach this embellished paper to your card base using the adhesive of your choice.


    Stamp the “hello” sentiment using Dusty Concord Distress Oxide ink or your preferred ink color. I stamped the sentiment directly onto the ink-blended card front.


    Tie a ribbon bow and attach it to your card front using Glue Dots or the adhesive of your choice.


    The card is now ready to personalize and send to the recipient of your choice.

    Over to You

    Did you participate in the Hero Arts “Blend It Up” challenge? If so, how did your project(s) turn out?


    Did you make a card similar to this one? If so, how did it turn out?


    We welcome any feedback and insights you have to contribute on the topic of this card, ink blending, or crafts in general. You’re invited to leave a comment in the comments area below.


    Thanks for visiting! If you’d like to stay awhile, we have many other paper craft tutorials, instructions and project ideas you might enjoy. Check ’em out:

    More Ink Blending Project Ideas:

    More Fun Paper Craft Project Ideas

    Posted By: Amy Solovay

    This page was last updated on May 1, 2022.