Welcome to my crafty blog and another throwback with a retired Stampin’ Up! set – ‘flourishing phrases’. I’ve always liked this floral spray from it, which I thought would sit well on one of my inky backgrounds (haven’t used one of those for a while). I had to get one out after I saw the theme over at Time Out, and added in the palette from Colour INKspiration.

Obviously, I started with the background for this one. I scribbled SU Write markers in the challenge colours onto my crafting mat, spritzed them with water and then mopped up on a piece of stencil card. The only downside to this technique for backgrounds is that you have to wait for them to dry!

I then stamped the floral spray using ‘pear pizzazz’ (the Write markers are great for inking up stamps), and used a blending brush with torn copy paper to create some hills across the bottom of the card.

I shaded parts of the floral spray with a couple of Write markers in the ‘daffodil yellow’ & ‘orchid oasis’. The orchid was very vibrant (it’s a new pen), so I used a damp piece of kitchen towel to blot the ink and lift a little off (stencil card copes well with a bit of water).

I mounted the background onto a layer of ‘orchid oasis’ card and attached it to a 6×6 card blank.

I’m happy with that. Inky backgrounds can really change the look of a stamped image – they are one of my favourite techniques.