Flower Power!

Stamping is very therapeutic. And today, I was especially grateful to have a project. The technique I was trying out is called "Floating Reinker." There is an excellent tutorial, complete with video at Patty's Stamping Spot.



The rose I used is one I have come close to tossing; I am not very good at coloring, and I didn't think the design was especially well done. It was a free stamp I'd gotten years ago, when I owned so few stamps I wasn't about to get rid of any! I'm really glad to have a use for it now, although it doesn't work nearly as well as the beautiful rose stamps in the tutorial.

I put two of the blue ones I made to show the difference made when using white embossing powder instead of clear. The white embossing powder (noticeably not a detail powder, which would be better) is brighter, and does not absorb any color at all.

This is one of those techniques where the type of paper used is essential. I don't own any of the Stampin' Up Shimmery White cardstock, but I do own a Microsparkle White, which I purchase at California Paper Goods. It does not work quite as well as SU's; I needed to actually stir most - but not all - the colors around sometimes to get them to spread. (I used SU reinkers, so that was not the issue).

This stamp worked well for the technique, though with attached leaves, I had to color them separately.


I tried a heavyweight recycled paper for this rosette, and it worked very well. However, it did not work with the larger roses, which I had tried first, so I just did basic watercoloring with the leaves rather than floating reinker. I used to dark a green, so no blending is visible. :-(


I've never layered images before, and I really liked how this turned out. Before coloring the leaves, I took a pink embossing marker, and filled in the edges of the flower, and then embossed with clear. This prevented the green die from leaking into the rose.


Lastly, as I love to do, I had to try this technique out with Opalite inks. I have black microsparkle paper, so although I knew the inks are not normal die inks, it was worth the try. The results were not great, but you can see that there is potential. I'll probably try it again sometime. I included both photos and scans, because as always, opalites don't photograph or scan well. The photos fail to show the brilliance and sparkle, and scans never get the color or "texture" right. So, how the roses actually look is somewhere in between the two, but a little "messier".