Inspire Me Monday: One Stamp - Three Cards!

 

GOOD MORNING FRIENDS! Welcome back to Inspire Me Monday! I've got three (yes three!) card projects for you today. 

As many of you know, my primary medium is Copic markers. But sometimes (especially when I'm in a crafting slump), I'll switch to other medium like colored pencils or watercolors to challenge myself. But I recently purchased Power Poppy's Grandma's Snowflakes stamp set which lends itself to various stamping techniques rather than coloring. Since I rarely create cards entirely from stamping, I decided to challenge myself to create multiple cards with the same stamp set. I pulled out my MISTI stamping tool and various pigment inks from my stash and got to work.

CARD 1

This was kind of my warm up card and I had to do this in a few stages. I inserted an A2 sized piece of white cardstock in my MISTI, arranged the larger stamps where I wanted them, and closed the MISTI door to stick them in place. I inked the stamps with Versafine Clare ink in Tulip Red and stamped the snowflakes a couple of times to make sure that I had good coverage. Then I cleaned the stamps, rearranged them again and stamped with Delicata Ink in Golden Glitz. This ink is pretty pale so it also required a few stampings, but the shimmer in the ink is pretty and subtle. I ended up doing this twice, first stamping the gold snowflakes on the lower half of the card and then arranging and stamping them on the upper half of the card. I stamped the sentiment in the lower corner with Versafine Clare in Nocturne. 

After the ink was fully dry, I die cut the cardstock, glued a piece of craft foam to the back for dimension and adhered it to a card base.

One down ... two to go!

CARD 2

Pink and black is one of my favorite color combinations so I decided to incorporate it here. I cut a piece of white cardstock to 2.5" x 4.25" and stamped the snowflakes as before using Delicata Ink in Rose Gold. The sentiment was stamped with Versafine Clare in Nocturne. 

Once the ink was dry, I started building the card layers as follows:

• Cut one piece of craft foam cut to 2.25" x 4"
• Cut one piece of white cardstock cut to 2.5" x 4.5"
• Cut one piece of pink cardstock cut to 3" x 4.75"
• Cut one piece of black and white polka dot pattern paper cut to 4.25" x 5.5"
• Glue craft foam to the back of the image layer for dimension. 
• Glue image layer to second piece of white cardstock, leaving a 1/8" border of white.
• Glue that to the pink cardstock, leaving a 1/8" border of pink.
• Glue pattern paper to your card base. 
• Position your image layers and glue to front of card. 
• Set aside to allow all the glued layers to dry.

Two down ... one to go!

CARD 3

For my last card, the stamping started off the same - I cut a piece of white cardstock and stamped the snowflakes with Delicata Ink in Rose Gold. The sentiment was once again stamped in Versafine Clare in Nocturne. 

For the background, I used a technique called dry embossing to create an impression into a piece of white cardstock. The effect is similar to using an embossing folder except that I created the embossed impression in the paper using a cutting die. This is done using a silicon embossing mat part of the die sandwich that you run through your die cutting machine. 

You should check the recommended die sandwich for your particular machine, but essentially it would consist of:

• Base plate
• Die (facing up)
• Cardstock
• Embossing mat
• Top plate

When you run the die sandwich through your machine, the embossing mat will prevent the die from cutting through the paper, leaving instead an embossed impression.  You can also use this technique with stencils. 

And now you have three cards, all created from the same stamp set!

That's all for me today! See you soon.