My order arrived today – a day ahead of schedule! So rather than play with any challenges, I had to play with some of my new stuff. I’ve been looking forward to trying the Stampin’ Up! Lotus Blossom set. It’s a sale-a-bration item which means that you can get it for free after you spend $50 (before shipping and tax) which really isn’t hard to do. In fact, for each $50 you spend, you get to select one item. Sale-a-bration starts for the general public on January 6th. For now, all demonstrators can show is projects made with the new items, not any of the pages of the new occasions or sale-a-bration catalogues.

I really love this stamp set – it’s a 3 step set meaning that you layer 3 images to get the end result. I started with the first stamp (they are numbered, don’t worry!) in cajun craze but I stamped on scrap paper first to get a less intense colour and then used crushed curry for the second image. I decided to also use crushed curry for the third image but stamped off on scrap paper first to get a paler colour there as well.

The stems are a two stamp image and I used Always Artichoke for both, stamping off for the second image to give the contrast. The Thank you is from the same set and that is obviously stamped in crushed curry as well. I adhered my piece of very vanilla onto a crushed curry base and then lined the envelope using the Background DSP from the Regal collection in crushed curry.