Floral Essence for a Botanical Brights design

Stampin' Up! has changed this years new catalogue to showcase products more clearly and allow you to see lots of inspirational pictures along with much clearer embellishment and tool pictures.  One that caught my eye very early is the Floral Essence stamp set.

I chose to use bold brights to create a botanical explosion of colour and florals and Floral Essence was the perfect choice.

I started with glossy paper/photo paper and dropped ink spots from a re-inker bottle across the paper. I then spritzed it with water in a Stampin' Spritzer.  The colour ran and and was spread out.  I then added another colour and did the same process allowing them to blend. In all I added 3 colours of Melon Mambo, Poppy Parade and Gorgeous Grape.  I took off some of the excess water lightly with a paper towel and also gently used my heat tool to dry the design.  I then added white heat embossed flowers.  Using the Stitched Rectangle dies I created a 'wonky' frame by adding the central rectangle at an angle.  I then stamped with Gorgeous Grape to extend the flowers outside the frame. I did this by eye and lucky placing and they are stamped onto the thick whisper white card base. I replaced the ink spot layer and added the frame on Stampin' dimensionals.

I stamped an additional flower on watercolour paper in versa mark before adding white embossing powder and colouring it using an aqua painter and ink from ink pad lids.

The greenery is created by stamping the leaf stamp from the stamp set and punching it out with the co-ordinating leaf punch and some sprigs with the Sprig punch using Granny Apple Green card and ink.  Some leaves were created by first stamping the stamp on a versa mark pad and then onto Granny Apple Green onto vellum and adding clear embossing powder before heating.

The simple sentiment is embossed in white onto black card. You can also see I added some splatter by putting the marker pen nib into it's lid partially and flicking it outwards.

It's a "here I am guys" kind of card, but fabulous for brightening your day and I'm proud to say it was published in Craft Stamper magazine last month.

I hope you like it too!

Thanks for stopping by and do visit my online shop to see this and many other fabulous stamp sets and more.

Happy crafting

Zoe x

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Mothers Day Make

Here in the UK we celebrate Mother's Day at a different time to many countries and so I made my card last week for my lovely Mum as we celebrated yesterday.  It was a lovely sunny day, my parents came for lunch and Olivia surprised me by popping home from university for the day and of course she and Charlie bought me some beautiful flowers. Some arrived by post which is always exciting on Friday and more yesterday with a fun and special card.  

My card was a big hit with Mum and I'm so pleased. It is bigger than many I make, but I know my mum loves to make bigger cards so I used a sheet of A4 for the base. I added several  matting layers which I embossed using different folders.  The first was just a tad smaller than the card base and I used one of the Stampin' Up! Petal Pair folders which are long and thin. I first embossed one end placing the folder just under half way down the card from the top and then again the same placing it from bottom up.  The next layer was smaller and embossed with the Subtle folder which is I have to admit not easy to see in the catalogue or on this picture, but the one above shows the linen effect it produces.  The next layer is again a tad smaller than the previous one and is embossed with the Tufted folder.  It made me think of a quilted pin cushion and fitted in with the Stampin' Up! set images of the Needle and Thread set.  I created a faux embroidery hoop using the Swirly Frames set and used my layering circle dies to cut out the image.  Next I built up an arrangement of the faux embroidered flowers. Needle and Thread is a Stampin' Up! DisINKtive set which gives a 3D impression and allows it to look like individual embroidery threads.    You can see more examples on my stampingscene scrapbook post and cards I made for onstage using the Needlepoint Nook suite and here. 

I also used a couple of the leave dies from the Stampin' Up! spring catalogue Wonderful Floral framelit dies.  One of them embosses at the same time as cuts but to create a deeper emboss you can also use the embossing mats from page 221 in the annual catalogue to create a deeper impression.
Quick Tip I die cut vellum leaves and then removed the vellum from the die carefully. I put Versamark ink on the die and replaced the vellum leaves.  I then used the embossing mats to push the ink onto the vellum leaves before adding copper embossing powder.  Once you've heated it it highlights the veins of the leaves.  You can see it peeking out at the bottom of my floral arrangement.

If you celebrated Mothering Sunday yesterday with your mum or without I hope it was a day of special memories. 

Perhaps if you received some spends for your craft you might like to look at the new Stampin' Up! Storage which launched today. 

You can order any of these pieces and that gorgeous grid paper in my Stampin' Up! Online Shop

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Thanks for checking in.

Zoe x