Notably Ornate birthday with Elegant Flowers embossing

I've been seeing some gorgeous cards made with embossing folders and one technique that has been intriguing me is colouring the raised images. I've seen this done with chalks, markers and pencils and have had a good old experiment myself, and now I think I've found the easiest way to colour embossed images. Come and have a look at today's card:

The flowers and swirls are all embossed on my favourite Confetti Cream card stock. I sponged Certainly Celery ink over that area of the card and Marina Mist over the sky area. I love the way the bits of the un-inked cream card stock makes the card look almost backlit. The sponging picks out the embossed area in quite a subtle way but I wanted to give more definition to the flowers...

...so I took a blender pen and coloured in the petals of the flowers using Marina Mist ink and the flower centres in Not Quite Navy. Can you see little detailed areas on the stems and petals? That's where the Confetti card stock creases as it goes through the Big Shot - it picks up more ink in these areas and gives little detailed areas that look almost like doodling.

Some sheets of Confetti card stock are more speckled than others. I chose a very speckled sheet for this card because I wanted to get a summer evening feel - you know, one of those golden evenings when the sun is going down and it's still really warm and there are bits of dandelion seeds floating in the air... Hmm. I'm looking out of the window and you'd never believe it's summer!

Do you like my little bird? He's been kissed! No I haven't entirely gone mad - the kissing technique is where you take a solid image like this bird, ink it up and then press it onto a detailed stamp to get a subtle pattern.

Here's how to make this card:

• Take an A5 piece of Confetti Cream card stock. Score and fold it in half to make a card base.
• Pop the card front into the Elegant Flowers embossing folder and run it through the Big Shot.
• Sponge Certainly Celery ink over the embossed area.
• Score two lines from the inside of the card front - one on the top and the other on the right-hand side. Sponge Marina Mist ink over the sky area, letting the ink pick up the scored lines.
• Use a blender pen to colour the stems and flowers, taking care not to let the colour go over the raised areas.
• Stamp a sentiment in Not Quite Navy ink using a stamp-a-majig to make sure it's straight.
• Ink up the bird stamp from Notably Ornate with Not Quite Navy ink then press a detailed stamp into it (I used the flower branch from Hopeful Thoughts). Now huff onto the stamp to remoisten the ink and stamp onto a scrap of Confetti Cream card stock. Add an eye with a Not Quite Navy marker. 
• Cut the stamped bird out with sharp paper snips and attach to the card front with dimensionals.

Supplies
Stamps: Notably Ornate, Hopeful Thoughts, So Happy For You (retired sale-a-bration set)
Ink: Certainly Celery, Marina Mist, Not Quite Navy
Card stock: Confetti Cream
Other: Elegant Flowers embossing folder - this is another one that's exclusive to Stampin' Up (check out the mini catalogue in my side bar for the others).

Well, thank goodness it's Friday! I've had a busy week and could do with some sleep - although maybe I'm yearning for a snooze because I can hear snores coming from the sofa by my computer...

What a cutie! 

Before I go off and have a little nap (this is pure fantasy believe me!) I'd just like to welcome my new followers - I hope you enjoy coming to see what I've been up to. Thank you to everyone for joining me today and for leaving coments and emails for me. I get so much pleasure from reading them and getting back to you. Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you very soon,