Bright Eastern Blooms

*phew* It's a little dusty here! Yes, I'm still around, however my mojo was taking a break and suddenly it's over halfway through October.

Last weekend, a large number of excited Stampin' Up! demonstrators from around Victoria flooded into the Crown Promenade Hotel in Melbourne to attend a regional training session. We spent six hours listening to inspiring presentations, seeing some "wow" demonstrations and making projects with the stamp set and supplies kit provided to us.

I can't show you the stamp set yet - for that you will have to wait until next month, as it won't be available for purchase until the Summer Mini is released later this year - and I didn't make any swaps so really there's not much to see here LOL. You can take a quick trip over to my dear friend Pauline's blog and see the swap she made - they were very popular, and she ran out by the first break!

However I did come away from Regionals with a new enthusiasm, and last night had a play with an old favourite stamp set, Eastern Blooms. Here's one of the cards I came up with.

I really like this colour combination (which I've used in the past, here). Who would have thought that Apricot Appeal, Pixie Pink and Real Red would work so well together?

The flowered branches are stamped a few times in Versamark on Whisper White cardstock, then clear embossed. To apply the colour I used a brayer (a rubber roller), inking the lower part of the card in Apricot Appeal and the upper with Pixie Pink (overlapping in the middle to blend the two colours), finally sponging a little Real Red along the top.

The embossing resists the ink so the Whisper White cardstock shows through on the branches.

I chose to use Whisper White rather than Glossy White (which I would normally use for brayering) because I like the soft look that it gives when it's brayered with colour. A while back a friend and I experimented with different, competing brands of white cardstock, and found that the Stampin' Up! Whisper White (and Very Vanilla) produce the best result, due probably to their ultra-smooth matte finish.

A quick heads up, too ... don't forget that the items in the current Spring Mini are only available for another six or so weeks - and that includes the Scallop Oval Punch shown here! Contact me today and snap it up while you can!

Images © 1990-2009 Stampin' Up!®

Supplies used:

Stamp set/s: Eastern Blooms, Big Bold Birthday
Ink: Apricot Appeal, Pixie Pink, Real Red
Cardstock: Pixie Pink, Apricot Appeal, Real Red, Whisper White
Other: Brayer, Clear Embossing Powder, Large Oval Punch, Scallop Oval Punch, Wide Oval Punch