If you want pretty and feminine for Mother's Day gift wrapping, you can't go past the Sweet Soirée Suite, and you can't go past the well-designed, ample Silver Mini Gable Boxes. Keep the gift box simple by adding a wrap of gorgeous Sweet Soirée Specialty Designer Series Paper, ribbon and a gift tag...

Today I am attending OnStage, which is a full-on day of celebrating achievements, creating and inspiration for Stampin' Up! Demonstrators. It also includes learning valuable training tips and playing with fun, new products from the soon-to-be-released 2018-2019 Annual Catalogue –woohoo! You can see some of what we are getting up to today at OnStage on the Creative Stamping Facebook Page.

One of the largest suites of coordinating products in the 2018 Occasions Catalogue is Sweet Soirée (pages 10-13). And that size extends to the included Cake Soirée stamp set - it's has a whopping 18 rubber stamps! The elegant combination of handpainted florals and classic silver metallic designs means this suite is perfect for creating pretty, feminine projects like this birthday card...

Happy Easter

I paired the fabulous Springtime Foils Specialty Designer Series Paper with the Blossoming Basket stamp set to create this thank you card. But, to make the gorgeous floral designs of the designer paper even more eye-catching, I brayered some colour with an ombre-effect...

Brusho Crystal Colour is a water-based powder that works well with resist techniques. A resist technique is when you add a waxy or shiny finish that water-based inks won't adhere to; to create a pattern or to protect parts of a stamped images from subsequent watercolouring. Resist is how I got the white highlights on the tongue, laces and toe cap of these stamped Converse-like shoes. Resist is also how I got the stamped words in white, appearing through the watercolour background. For the shoes I used a white waxy crayon or pastel over the stamped image, where I wanted to retain the white (Wax Resist Technique), For the words, I stamped and heat embossed with white embossing powder (Emboss Resist Technique). I did all this before sprinkling on Brusho Crystal Colour and spritzing with water...

Yes, I stamped with Brusho Crystal Colour! That's right, I used the solid stamps from the Lots of Lavender two-step stamping set to give this image a gorgeous watercolour look...

Have you tried Brusho Crystal Colour yet? It's containers of dry ink crystals that burst in water! Just apply a generous amount of water onto your project and shake Brusho Crystal Colour over the top, then watch the colour explode and bleed into the wet areas. Alternatively, to get a splash of colour, shake Brusho Crystal Colour onto your project, spritz with water and watch the intense colour of the crystals burst and spread in the water, which I what I did to create this celebratory card...