Hey, get your brayer on! (Plant Hope stamp set)

Ok, I've been sitting on this card and a couple of others for a while but now that my Basic Brayer class is over, I can share the pics.  For anyone who recently started following my blog, I had the rare pleasure of attending a brayer class given by Stampin' Up! demonstrator and practically world renowned  brayer expert, Michelle Zindorf in late February.  It rocked and I learned so much from her that I've been looking forward to doing my own version of a brayer class ever since.  When this stamp set, Plant Hope, came out in the new catalogue last July I knew this would be a great set for brayered scenery so I scheduled this class and started sign ups in July at my Open House.  Finally, today was the day!  I was a little nervous....no way am I as comfortable and confident as Michelle Zindorf, Master Brayermeister!  Thankfully I have great customers who are quite patient with me and I think we all enjoyed the class.

This is the first of the three cards that we made at class...the pine tree image from Plant Hope was just made to order for this great winter snow scene.  And it's a surprisingly easy card to make...everyone sailed right through it at class.  In fact, once they got the hang of using a light touch and letting the brayer "drift" the color down the card on their first practice brayer run, they did just great.  

The colors we used were Baja Breese and Sahara Sand to brayer the sky, that gave it a nice dusky look and toned down the brightness of all that cold white stuff!  Of course the trees were stamped in black and then a bit of Baja sponging around the edge before mounting the card on first a layer of Sahara Sand cardstock then a layer of Basic black and finally a folded card base of Baja Breeze.  I love the way the stars twinkle in the night sky, this was done with a white gel pen.  A little glitter on the snow would've been a plus but we were there to brayer not sparkle so I tried to stay focused on the brayering.             

I will share the other two cards later on this week....if you are local and would be interested in learning this awesome brayering technique (it's really not hard!) please let me know as I am considering offering another one after we get past the holidays.  My class schedule is already set thru the end of 2011 and I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze in another session of the Headstart on the Holidays class somewhere in November.  Wouldn't this be a great winter class?  Shoot, it's a great class for ANY season!