Colouring Floral Essence

Welcome to my blog! I am delighted to be participating in Kylie's Training Group blog hop for May.

I have had so much fun making a few cards with a stamp set called Floral Essence. It is a fantastic set which will be available from 4th June in the new catalogue. Recently, life has been somewhat hectic, so it was a real treat to create with some fresh designs. I chose to try out a couple of different techniques for colouring the images, whilst using the same basic layout for the cards. Read on to see what I did...

The Floral Essence set has a wonderful flower image with petals that cry out to be coloured. I cut a pile of Crumb Cake layers and dusted them with the embossing buddy. On each layer I stamped several flowers, using Versamark ink, around the left hand corner. I filled in some of the gaps with leaves and then covered the whole lot with embossing powder. The excess powder is returned to the pot to be used another time, so there is no wastage! The magic happens when the embossing powder is heated and the powder transforms into a raised, shiny outline. The plain images already look pretty stunning, but I wanted to add some colour!

The Crumb Cake layers were coloured using the Whitewash Technique. I transferred some white Craft ink on to a non-porous surface (an acrylic block works perfectly for this) and used an Aqua Painter, filled with plain water, to colour in the petals completely. The appearance is quite milky but it dries into the paper and lightens slightly. The opacity can be adjusted by adding more or less water. Once the white layer is dry, colour is added over the top - I used Blackberry Bliss and Mint Macaron to create an accent.  Again, I pressed my block into the ink and then used an Aqua Painter to add the colour to the centres of the flowers, where the detail is. You can also use a Wink of Stella pen to colour with if you want the colour to sparkle!

I used a variety of elements from the Well Said stamps and Well Written dies to create the sentiments. I've tried a range of centres for the flowers. A centre included within the stamp set and Blackberry Bliss ink and, for a more textured appearance, I used Faceted Gems. Look closely, and you can see I used gold, clear and Blackberry Bliss ones (aka clear ones coloured with my Blackberry Bliss Blend!)

As I was getting into the swing of things, I experimented and changed things up a little. I tried gold embossing powder on Crumb Cake card and coloured the images in a similar fashion. Isn't the effect pretty?

Next, I tried stamping and heat embossing on to vellum. I tried both gold and white embossing powders. This time I coloured, on the reverse of the vellum, using Stampin' Blends. The colour shows through the vellum in a subtle way. I coloured two pieces using the same Blends, but they are mounted on to different backgrounds (one is Whisper White and the other is Mint Macaron), which alters the way the colours appear. I used a sentiment from the Floral Essences set too - doesn't the gold embossing look smart?

Thank you for visiting my blog today. I really hope that you like my series of Floral Essence cards and that you'll try some therapeutic colouring too. 

Enjoy hopping round and visiting the other blogs - you are sure to find lots of ideas to inspire you to create something special. You are currently at my blog - Karen Henderson. So check out the list below to see who is next on the list. Make sure you don't miss any!

Blog Hop List:

 
If you want to purchase the items used for these cards, or any other supplies, please take a look in my online Stampin' Up! shop.  You can follow the link or click on the pictures below of the products I have used today.

As always, happy crafting,

If you would like to order any supplies, and you live in the UK, I would love to be your demonstrator.  Use the hostess code RCYWB6QN to get some free product (it will follow in the post after the end of the month). If your order is over £150 do not use the code as you become the hostess and get rewards.  To place an order please visit my online shop HERE.

If you would like to join my team, you can choose your starter kit HERE and if you have any questions, please contact me at furrycatdesigns@gmail.com

Alternatively, you can click on one of the images below showing the supplies used: