Friday, June 13, 2025

ELEMENTS OF TEXT & BEAUTIFUL MOTIFS

For my last card this week, I am combining the Elements of Text stamp set (my featured product of the week) with the Beautiful Motifs Bundle.

I believe that for the first time, I used EVERY stamp in the Elements of Text stamp set on today's card.

Because the Elements of Text stamp set does not include sentiment, I reached to the new Beautiful Motifs stamp set to provide my greeting.  The Beautiful Motifs stamp set includes several greetings, but it also includes of couple of stamps that can be used to add texture to backgrounds. So I decided to use those on today's card also.


The layout of this card is based on my Fairless Stampin' Flair Sketch #2 which I used in yesterday's Learning with Friends video.  You can watch that video to learn more.


Here is an image of Sketch #2.


For this card I created my own "designer series paper" for two of the panels.  For the largest panel I used DSP from the Beautiful Gallery DSP Collection.

All stamping was done with Gray Granite and Blueberry Bushel ink, but remember, you can create multiple shade of each color by either stamping full strength or stamping off one or more times before stamping on your cardstock.


The Granny Apple Green Fern die cut was made with a Beautiful Motif die.

The design theme was carried to the inside of the card as well.


It creates a nice set of stationary when the inside and the envelope continue the theme from the card front.

Use this link to download a detailed tutorial with step-by-step directions.

A list of products is shown below.  Click on any image to learn more about that product.

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Location: Commerce Township, MI, USA

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

ELEMENTS OF TEXT & MIXED FLORALS

Today, I'm taking another try with the Elements of Text Stamp Set.  Once again, I do not think I met the intent of my self-imposed challenge -- to make the Elements of Text Stamp set a focal point or major part of a card.


Today's card is probably a more expected and traditional use of stamp sets like this.  I used it to create texture on my background.  I used both the large circular text stamp as well and both of the speckles stamps.

 

I wanted to experiment a bit with color today. I pictured Crumb Cake as my "grungy" background (I know it's not very grungy, but its "grungy" for me). But then my color "expertise" (or lack thereof) hit a wall.  So, when that happens I get my trusty Color Coach and start looking for combinations that look "interesting".  This time it led me to Secret Sea and Calypso Coral with Crumb Cake.  Who would have figured that one out? Certainly not me, but I was already not complying with my own challenge, so I thought what the heck!  Let's try it!

So, I made my card base from Secret Sea, "grunged" up my Crumb Cake Background with tone-on-tone stamping and colored my coneflower from Mixed Florals with Calypso Coral.  Surprise!  I liked it!  In fact, I liked it a lot!  But then I had those tiny little flowers around the coneflower and didn't know what to do with them?  Yellow?  Seemed a little bright.  My color coach was guiding me to Timid Tiger, but I don't have the Timid Tiger Stampin' Blends -- yet.  So, I grabbed Peach Pie and experimented.  I had a winner (at least in my color-challenged mind)!

Does anyone else stress over color selections?  My analytical, engineering brain certainly does.

But what is that saying?  Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.  I think I may have stumbled on a "nut".

I decided to keep the color going on the inside of the card and the envelope.  So I stamped a couple more flowers and started coloring.

Use this link to download a tutorial with all the details.

The products that were used on today's card are listed below.

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Location: Commerce Township, MI, USA

Monday, June 9, 2025

ELEMENTS OF TEXT & BUTTERFLIES

I decided to challenge myself this week to use a stamp set that is great for creating "backgrounds", but I wanted to see if I could use it in ways that would have it play a larger part in the design of the card.  I'm not sure how well I achieved my goal, but it was definitely a challenge.

The stamp set I am featuring is the Elements of Text stamp set.  The set includes three stamps that are text and two stamps that are speckles or splotches -- whatever you like to call them.  This is the stamp set.  As you can see there is a fairly large rectangular text stamp, a smaller rectangular text stamp and a large circular text stamp.  

The two speckles stamps are similar, just different in shape and distribution of the speckles.

These types of stamps are typically used to add texture and interest to a card background or other images but are not necessarily the "focal" point of the card.

For today's card I stamped the large rectangular text stamp with VersaMark ink on Basic White cardstock.  I then heat embossed the image with white embossing powder and used the embossed resist technique to add Soft Sea Foam ink over the script to make it pop a bit.

The frame from Thoughtful Designs Specialty Paper (DSP) was die cut with a Sentimental Framing Die.

Elements of Text doesn't include any greetings -- unless maybe you can read the tiny text (I can't).  So, I looked through my stash and found this scripty "hello" in Beautiful Butterflies which fit perfectly on another Sentimental Framing die cut.

Since I had the Beautiful Butterflies stamp set pulled for its sentiments I decided to die cut a couple of the smaller butterflies from Basic White.  To add little pop of color to the butterflies I used a sponge dauber with Flirty Flamingo and Soft Sea Foam ink.

When I die cut the frame I ended up with a skinny "scrap" from outside the die cut.


Had I planned it ahead of time I probably would have cut my original DSP a little larger to have a wider "scrap" frame.  But since I didn't plan ahead I used it as is.  I think it still makes a nice attention grabber for the inside sentiments which are also from Beautiful Butterflies.

For more specifics on today's card, you can download a tutorial using this link.

A list of products used is shown below.

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Location: Commerce Township, MI, USA
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