Inspiration: Tiffany Solorio's presentation at the Stress-Free Card Summit
This weekend, I watched the videos shared during the Stress Free Card Making Summit, and Tiffany Solorio made a project where she used her Distress watercolor pencils to color rubber stamps. I was curious to try it so I went to my stamp collection and pulled out two options: Perfect Plaid and Department Store (both from Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous).
I started with the plaid background. I colored one side of the stripes with Faded Jeans and the other stripes with Rustic Wilderness. The center squares were colored with Frayed Burlap. I stamped the image twice (coloring again in between) on Crumb Cake cardstock and the result was a pretty neat, worn-out look. I then proceeded to color the wreath from the second stamp set using Rustic Wilderness, Candied Apple and Frayed Burlap. I stamped it on Crumb Cake again and fussy cut the image. The result was pretty good, but it did not stand out enough against the background and was not really working out well. I was wondering if I should overstamp the image with Archival ink but was worried I'd lose the cool watercolored look, so I tested stamping the wreath with Vintage photo Archival ink on another piece of Crumb Cake cardstock. It looked pretty good and I decided to watercolor this one, using an aquapainter brush. Different result, also vintage looking, but still not a good match for the background.
At that point, I decided to focus on the background and keep the wreath for future projects instead. I overstamped the music notes in brown and the words in Night of Navy ink. I had recently acquired some White Gold sparkly embossing powder and I decided to test out embossing the bells from the stamp set on Crumb Cake cardstock. I liked the result, so I added a bit of shading using Soft Suede ink and moving it around with my aquapainter brush. I fussy cut the image and added ink blending around the edges as well using brown Distress ink.
I needed to bring the bells to the forefront more so I looked for something to back the bells with. I found some old (and I mean old) cut-aparts that I'm pretty sure date back to my very first online order when I had just discovered scrapbooking over 20 years ago. I used quite a few of the images on Christmas projects over the years, and then they fell to the bottom of the pile for years. When I destashed at the beginning of the summer, those went in the "maybe" pile - kept aside for a short while to decide if they could be used or had to go. Well, they caught my eye on my desk and I realized the burgundy went really well with my background and made the craft stand out nicely. I added a piece of navy velvet ribbon to bring texture and used dimensional adhesive to add the bells. To zhuzh them up, I tied two Tiny Bells together with baker's twine and glued it on top of the bells.
I inked up the edges of a Shaded Spruce mat and a Night of Navy card base and called it done. On a Crumb Cake envelope, I stamped the sheet music in Antique Linen ink and the bells in Vintage Photo ink. This is a departure from my usual style so I'm happy I managed to pull it together in the end. This would make a great masculine card.
Supplies
Stamps: Department Store, Perfect Plaids (Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous)
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Night of Navy, Shaded Spruce (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Night of Navy, Soft Suede, VersaMark (Stampin' Up!);
Antique Linen, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress (Ranger)
Dies: Cross-Stitched Rectangle Stackables (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: BrilliantSparkle White Gold Embossing Powder (Cosmic Shimmer);
Crumb Cake Medium Envelope, Stampin' Dimensionals, Sponge Daubers,
Night of Navy Velvet Trim, Aquapainter Brush (Stampin' Up!);
Tiny Bells (Tim Holtz for Idea-ology); Vivant Baker's Twine (Spellbinders);
Distress Watercolor Pencils (Tim Holtz for Ranger); Vintage Cut-Aparts (Unknown Source)
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