Been a bit wet here lately!

This year I think the April showers came along with the March winds! At least, I hope they did, and that we're not going to get them again this month! The river by our house, usually calm and placid, turned into a lake.

Fortunately our house is well above any possible flood level, but it is quite scary to see nonetheless.

February was lovely, much warmer than usual, but March certainly made up for it, and though the daffodils came out a good few weeks early, no doubt spurred on by the warmth of February, they are probably wishing they hadn't, as they are now being battered by the winds, sleet, and hail showers, and shivering in single figure temperatures! And it's only a couple of months until the longest day!

Still, hopefully all that water will be put to good use, which brings me nicely to our theme for our April Challenge at Stamping Sensations, which is

* * * * * APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY FLOWERS * * * * *

As usual, it is up to you how you interpret this, but the main image of your project must be stamped and relevant to the theme. Please check out our full challenge rules here to ensure your entry is eligible.

Our lovely sponsors this month are Be Creative who are offering a fab £25 voucher for the lucky winner to spend in their online store.

I had a gorgeous new background stamp from Concord & 9th which I was itching to use, and it happened to be perfect for our theme. It's called Lovely Blossoms and is a turnabout stamp. If you've never come across turnabout stamps before, there are many Youtube videos on the subject that are worth watching.

Having stamped and matted the background on to a 6"x 6" base card, I used the emboss resist technique to create the circle element. I stamped all the images with Versamark ink, embossed them with clear powder, and sponged various colours of pigment ink over the top. Wiping away the excess ink with a tissue made the stamping pop. I added a bit of extra colour to the main flowers with brush markers, and the result was nice enough, but didn't quite have the impact I was hoping for. After a few moments thought, I decided to stamp and colour the three large flowers again, cut them out and attach them over the original stamping with sticky pads. That simple addition made a huge difference and gave depth to the picture. It just needed something in the bottom corner to balance the composition. I had a Concord & 9th flower die which was similar to the stamped flowers, so I cut it twice and used the cutouts from one to fill in the other, with a piece of  Card Candi from Craftwork Cards for the flower centre. All stamps by Concord & 9th, except for the raindrops, which was a magazine freebie. Circle dies from The Works. The sentiment is computer generated.

In case you're stuck for ideas, there's some gorgeous inspiration from my teamies over on the Stamping Sensations Challenge Blog. We are looking forward to seeing lots of lovely flowery showery entries!