Wake up and smell the rununculus...

If you ask me, flowers are an absolute staple for card makers, stampers particularly.  No matter how many I own, I can always make room for more flower stamps.  And I have.... whilst making samples for the workshop at Japonica. Which is now, rather alarmingly) at the end of this month!  
We settled on using the Stampendous Clear set, Ranunculus. 

And somewhere in our conversations, we talked about using Brilliance ink pads.  For me, this was an invitation to dust mine off, I haven't used them for ages.  Of course, I'd forgotten how much I like them.
So I've been making cards featuring these tight bud flowers. And initially, they caused me problems....and the mojo was being very stubborn. But I've managed a few..and had fun with the fact that I HAD to make time at my desk to do them.  I've had less fun trying to re-do them so that I can 'judge' how long they'll take, but that's a whole other story about not putting stuff away and trying to rely on a memory that is, apparently, shot. 

Modern and mono - I water coloured them with Brilliance Lightening Black.

Now remember, I'm not an artist, so when I say water coloured, I mean that I squished the ink pad onto a non porous surface (for me, that's my glass cutting mat) and spritzed it with water.  Then I use any old paintbrush to pick the colour up and paint as inside the lines as I can.

Done the same way, this time the flower heads were embossed...and I went to the trouble of a bit of decoupage too.   Quite a plain card, but not awful.

This 8 x 8 card is a challenge too far for me...I'm happy to scrapbook on 8 x 8, but a card? Ulp! So to avoid the arty 'clump in the corner with lots of white space' I've gone for a spring time wreath.  Same method..stamp and emboss flowers, watercolour with mixed Brilliance inks and then cut out.  Layer onto white mulberry paper, the edges of which I stained with leftover 'water colour' ink.

Big, innit.  

And then I retreated to type and comfort zone.  These are stamped in Black versafine and coloured with pencils.  So, so much safer!  I mounted the page onto the purple-ish card stock and then put them in a cuttlebug embossing folder. 

So if you're coming to Japonica, prepare to have inky fingers.  If you're coming to the Card marathon, prepare to use this stamp set...now I've started, the old mojo is finally awake and smelling the flowers!