Layered Stamps: Altenew Painted Rose

Layered stamps to make photo-realistic images or faux water-colour-esque images is very popular right now. I received a stamp set at Scrapfest Kitchener (2018). So, I tried it out. It's Altenew's Painted Rose stamp set. It includes a single, very large, rose. Each element has 3 stamps to layer in 3 colours.

The first card I made was a birthday card. I used pinks for this one.

I have a MISTI stamping tool to help me layer it up just right. It actually took quite a long time to stamp all of these. I stamped the flower first, masked it, then stamped the leaves. Then I die cut through it and popped up the cut-out part on foam.

Then I tried a yellow combination. This one I made as my handmade mother's day card for this year. The lightest layer is actually Antique Linen distress ink, which is a pale brown with a yellow tone.

I made a subtle background with a script font background stamp. This time, I stamped the flower and cut it out by hand. Then I placed it so I could see where to stamp my leaves. Then I stamped my leaves and just put the cut out flower on top. I also stamped one less leaf set, partly because this card base was smaller than the first card I did, and partly because it takes so much time to do all that stamp layering!

I decided to try some wink of Stella glitter pen on the darkest colour here. I really like how that looked (but it's hard to photograph. You can click the photo for a larger view.)

Do you like stamp layering? You need to have a lot of ink pad colours, to me. (Or watercolour markers that you can colour on to the stamp, but that doesn't seem work as well on clear stamps as it does on rubber stamps, I find.) Do you have any stamp layering tips or tricks to share? Feel free to leave your suggestion in the comments below!

Bright Cheery Flowers Thank-You Card

I attended Scrapfest with some family and friends this April. (It was the freak ice-storm weekend. We only got to enjoy half of the event.) I had made little purse favours out of 12 x 6 thick, foiled, patterned cardstock. (I'll have to remember to post those sometime!)

As a thank-you for making the arrangements, driving, and gifting little handmade favours, I got this handmade thank-you card!

The layering of the die cuts is excellently done! The colour selection is bright, bold, and cheery! The cardstock matches the patterned paper perfectly!

I was very impressed and flattered to receive it. There's a nice computer typed message inside, matted with matching colours and decorated with some enamel dots. I love enamel dots. How flat they are is perfect for getting cards through the mail or even for putting on the insides of the cards as my friend did here.

Look how well composed this card is. Nice and full of visual interest! 

We got event goody bags too and, in there, we got an AlteNew layering stamp set. It looks suspiciously like this flower, so I wonder if my friend went and bought the matching die when we were at the event. I love die cuts because they have such perfectly clean edges but also give a small amount of tactile interest. My friend got a great deal on a Spellbinders Platinum 6 at the event and she's very pleased with it. You can see how pleased by the amount of die cuts on this card!

There were some other enclosures gifted in my card. I was surprised to get it! If anything, I should be thanking everyone else for letting me drag them off to events like Scrapfest!

Acrylic Smash Galaxy Background with Nuvo Embellishment Mousse

I posted a card I made for my nephew with a dragon making birthday wishes among the stars. Here, I share the video of how I made that background.

I started with blobbing colours of Nuvo embellishment mousse onto plain white cardstock. Then I diluted black ash Nuvo mousse with water on a piece of acetate (since I don't have a round acrylic block) and smooshed it on to the paper. Many times. Lots of smooshing.

The one of the left is the Nuvo Mousse one. The one on the right has dye ink underneath the black ash Nuvo mousse. I have a stronger teal colour ink dye in than the Nuvo aquamarine. (I have since acquired the Nuvo teal mousse.)

If you don't remember, here's the card I had made with it.

Click to watch this video on YouTube!

This was the best result so far, but also the messiest. My next, and last, experiment used mousse and alcohol ink. It was a tiny bit less messy but I liked the results much much more! I'll be back to show that one sometime in the future.

Magical Day Unicorn Card

I'm a dragons and fairies girl, myself, but unicorns and Pegasuses can turn my head too. When I saw this stamp set by Neat & Tangled, I wanted the sentiment to go with my fairies. However, the unicorn is quite nice too!

I challenged myself to use colours I wouldn't normally be drawn too - yellow, pink and red. The yellow and pink mixed together to create a peachy kind of colour which was perfect. I ink smooshed a strip of paper to stamp the leaves on top of too.

I coloured the unicorn with my alcohol markers (copic and Promarker) and then spritzed it with diluted pure platinum Nuvo Embellishment Mousse. You can see the sparkly spots from the spritzing in the picture above to give that little bit of shine that every unicorn needs!

This was one of the cards from the ink smooshing technique class I led. It can be quite addicting when every piece comes out different!