Garden Trio

Stamp Club this afternoon was really fun! Thanks, Brenda, for your heated floors and the addictive "Peanut Butter Blast." Did you know that there are over 70 Chex Mix recipes?

We learned the wax paper emboss resist technique today, but I'll post that later.

Here is one of the cards we made. It features Stampin' Up!'s From the Garden designer series paper. I was feeling the blue-green color combination, so we highlighted Pacific Point and Wild Wasabi, with splashes of Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Tangerine Tango.

(Not sure why my image is sideways...Sorry about that!)

I stole the layout for this card from the Idea Book & Catalog. Check out the sample for Sincere Salutations, and you'll be able to see that I simplified the design, and changed the colors and embellishments slightly.

The Wild Wasabi panel is textured with the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder in the Big Shot. We also used the BS and Circles die to cut the large circles for the flower. We made "petals" by making small cuts all around the edge with the ever-faithful Paper Snips.

With all this texture and depth, I recommend using Sticky Strip, Mini Glue Dots and Stampin' Dimensionals to put this card together. The white card liner features a sentiment (from Sincere Salutations) stamped in Pacific Point as well as a trio of punched dsp squares. For an added touch, line your envelope with some dsp, too!

Don't forget that Sale-A-Bration starts on Tuesday (January 24-March 31, 2012). Now's your chance to earn FREE product with $50 purchase, or even more when you host a qualifying workshop. I have a few available dates, so contact me if you're interested in some free stuff!

Happy Stamping!

A Silhouette Trio

Part Two of my six-card set was this group of cards made using the Plaid Silhouette technique.

Similar in versatility to the Rock and Roll technique I posted last week, Plaid Silhouette extends the range of your bold-image stamps. I love the combination of this technique with the elephant stamp from Animal Stories.

Here is a close-up of the card with a Rose Red base.

Again, I kept both the layout and stamping simple.

The Plaid Silhouette technique uses three ink colors. Here I selected So Saffron (light) and Rose Red and Old Olive (darker). After inking the stamp with the light ink, turn the stamp over and press the edge of one of the darker ink pads on the stamp to make a series of lines. Turn the stamp 90 degrees to make crossing lines. Repeat with another dark ink pad.

If you haven't tried this one, you should. You'll love the look you get.

An Old Favorite: Rock and Roll

I made a quick set of six cards last weekend. To save time and also make good use of some of my plentiful designer papers, I limited my stamping to one image. The rest of the detail of the card design is built right into this nifty (retired) patterned paper from Stampin' Up!.

I picked three of the colors from this paper to carry through in the cards: Old Olive, So Saffron and Rose Red. Each color served as one card base, and then I used two of the colors in the stamped owl images on each card.

Here is a close-up of the card with the Old Olive base.

After choosing the part of the design I wanted for the scenery/background, I stamped three owl images from Animal Stories. I used the Rock and Roll technique to add both Old Olive and So Saffron ink to the stamped image. It's simple. Ink the stamp with So Saffron ink. Roll the stamp on the Old Olive pad, so that the edges pick up the darker ink, but the center retains the lighter ink color. You can see that I used progressively more of the darker ink with each image I stamped.

Try this technique with some of your bold-image stamps for a fun new look!