HD Florabunda Radiant Roses - Part 1

Today I'm taking a break from making Christmas cards.  My brother gave me a Hunkydory kit awhile back called Florabunda Radiant Roses, and these are the first 4 cards made with that kit.

Card #1 (above):  First up is an A2 card.  I used a HOTP embossing folder called "Rose Corner" on the front of the card, then inked it as you can see.  To that I added my sentiment - matted with a piece of AS (Adorable Scoreable card stock from the kit) and some gold poster board cut with a Fun Stampers Journey cutting die from the "Rectangles" die set.

Card #2:

Card number two started with a piece of AS.  I heat embossed the edges with gold, then embossed it using a Spellbinder's 3-D embossing folder called European Tapestry.  Unfortunately when I embossed it, it cracked a bit in the darker part of the AS, so I hit the embossed areas with gold ink to hide that issue.  A topper from the kit was all I added to my embossed background.

Card #3:

This card simply uses elements from the kit, along with some gold poster board.

Inside:

Card #4:

This last of today's cards was made using a piece of the AS.  I was not happy with it, however, because the roses and leaves were VERY pixelated - very unlike usual HD standards.  To try to hide that issue and make it look better, I went over outlines and edges with a gold gel pen.  It really DID help!  

The card stock is only 8 1/4" or so wide, and I wanted it to be more like 8 1/2" for the card I was making - so I sliced it and inserted a ribbon from my stash to add the extra height before adding the sentiment.  Matting was done with gold poster board.  

Inside: