Hello again! I grabbed the opportunity this afternoon to have another play with the new Build a Bloom stamps – they are pretty irresistible! This time I went with set 2 to create a rose on one of my alcohol ink backgrounds from Barbara’s online workshop (it’s still available to purchase), pulling in a fairy from the Whimsical Miniatures set and one of the Bijou Tall Feel Good sentiments.

As I said, I started with one of my alcohol ink backgrounds from Barbara’s course – I’d pulled the print from a gel plate onto a 3.5″ square of premium card. I paired up two of the stamps to create my rose, stamping the slightly larger one first in ‘kitsch flamingo’ Distress Oxide, then topping it with the smaller one in ‘picked raspberry’, before adding the stem with black Archival.

I added the little leaves, shading them with a green Polychromo pencil, then stamped the line of dots a few times to create the ground, adding colour across a torn piece of copy paper with ‘peeled paint’ Distress Oxide and a spot-on sponge.

I’d decided I wanted to use the the sentiment, but then spent some time searching for a suitable figure to go with it! (I’m never very good at properly planning in advance…) None of the little Clarity people seemed to work for me, but then I remembered the little fairies in the Whimsical Figures miniatures set – perfect! I then simply added my usual finishing touches – a black Sharpie around the edges of the topper and a square embedder to emboss a frame on the front of a 5×5 card blank.

These Build a Bloom stamps are just inspired – they’re so versatile for creating lots of different flowers. I’m off now to share this creation with a few challenges, starting with TicTacToe – I picked up floral, free & encouragement from the right hand diagonal on their grid. It’s also heading for the galleries at We Love Stamping for their spring theme and Allsorts who are ‘in the garden’.