A friend and I were talking about our process when working with a new stamp set. I don’t vary the process much. I think about what card I need, who the card is for, and then try to design it from there. My friend, on the other hand, lays out the stamps, and just starts playing with them. I purchased “Stemmed Statements” from Papertrey Ink because I just loved the flower images, and liked the small sentiments as well. I decided to “just play.” I stamped a lot of images, colored them with Copic markers, and die cut them all. Here they are laid out on my craft mat after I arranged them into clusters I thought might work on a card.
I ended up with eight cards, some of which have gone in the mail already, and several are ready to mail out in September. I thought I’d share a few today, and will share the rest later when I know the recipients have gotten them.
The first two use the Nasturium image. When Papertrey had a paper sale during their February anniversary release I picked up the Woodblocks prints pad. This beautiful orange pattern seemed perfect as a backdrop for the nasturiums.
I layered a couple of the Infinity Frames and added a tag from the Stemmed statements. The patterned paper was die cut with the Stitched Rectange die from Simon Says and it was all adhered to a Terracotta Tile card.
In order to cut the stitched rectangle from the patterned paper for the card above, I was left with a narrow frame of the paper, and didn't want to throw it in the trash. I layered it on white cardstock after embossing it with an old embossing folder.
For the sentiment, I used an old favorite PTI die Double Ended Banners cut from Terracotta Tile. The sentiment is from Banner Sentiments which I partially masked to get just the three words.
Next up for today are the cards created with the poppy image. I love red poppies so decided to color them all in red. I'd seen a card during the release of Stemmed Statements with the poppy image on kraft paper, so that's where I started.
I die cut the Horizontal Stripes die from kraft as a subtle background for the poppy, and tied a bit of twine to it for an accent. I also added three black enamel dots.
Next up might be my favorite from the Stemmed Statement play date.
Red, black, and white is always one of my favorite color combinations. I die cut the black "frame" from the Mix and Mat: Pretty Brackets die, adhered it to Fresh Snow Linen cardstock and added the poppies and a small tag from Stemmed Statements.
That's it for today. We have a very quiet weekend. Matt, Betsy, and the girls are coming for dinner tonight, but there is nothing else on the calendar. I'm hoping to get the desk cleared off, and get back to my long neglected Project Life pages.
