It’s been a couple of days since my last post, with the previous week being very productive for me. My husband is back from his travels, so today is the first day since his return I have been able to go to my craft room and play – he has gone golfing.

I went to Crafting Live in Doncaster yesterday and came away with quite a lot of goodies. I went there with mum, and we had a good time, a few laughs – and bought lots of stuff! That show is amazing. I tend to go in the summer, with mum and sister, and we always find what we are looking for, the stall staff are very friendly and helpful, even though it does tend to be very, very busy. I think we were there for over four hours, and sometimes go back for the second day, too – but the weather is gorgeous, I have time to play, and time to go into the garden – so decided not to this time.

This rose stamp is a new buy from Honey Doo crafts called ‘Roses are red’ and comes with a matching die. I decided not to do one card, or two, but four in total. I used my Crafters Companion water-colour card, and stamped and embossed the outline twice in detail black, and twice from white. I knew I wanted to add the colours from the CAS colours and sketches challenge, and wanted to play with different techniques. The colours are named from Stampin Up, and I do have the exact colours, so I didn’t have to think about which colours matched.

After embossing the outlines in white, for one card I used my water-colour brush and took ink from the lid of the ink casing, and coloured the flower for a muted look, and on the other white embossed card I used my Stampin Up markers of the same colours for a slightly more vibrant look – but still drew the ink out with my water-colour brush, adding a blue wash around the flower, before die-cutting the image and sticking to a 6 inch square white card.

For the images embossed in black, I coloured the image using the markers and drew the colour out slightly with my water brush, and for the other I coloured the image with the pens without drawing the colour out, for a more vibrant look.

I love how versatile this stamp is, and how the different techniques can give a totally different look. My favourite is the more vibrant look, and of the cards the two embossed in black seem to stand out more.

I shall also be entering one of these cards into the Crafty Challenge Calendar and Addicted to Stamps and More