02 January 2021

Welcome to 2021!

Hello Crafty Peeps! We made it - it's 2021 and my wish is that you all stay healthy and happy this year. 

I took a break from crafting over the holiday season - I packed all my stuff away (honest, I did - all of it!) and haven't yet made a card this year. However, just before Christmas I made a set of three cards using Altenew's Bold Floral Drape stamp set, which I'll show you today. All the supplies are linked below. 

This stamp set is great for backgrounds but also has individual solid flowers that can either be used to fill in the flowers of the background stamp or as separate single flowers. I have to admit that I didn't set out to make the three cards at all. I was stamping the large stamp for the first time and used a neutral grey (Distress Oxide Weathered Wood) just to see the stamped image. I hadn't inked the stamp particularly thoroughly, nor had I conditioned the stamp in any way, so the result was a little patchy and I liked it so much that I repeated it! 

Card One


This is quite a simple card (for me, at least!). The sentiment is one of my own, printed on a laser printer and foiled through a laminator. I shall make more of these, I think - love having foiled greetings to hand.


I chose some gold mirror card to cut a frame from the Altenew Crystal Frames die set and mounted it all onto a grey card base. I like gold and silver together - I like the warmth that the gold gives.


I made an envelope from some matt silver paper and a few clear sequins finished off the card. 

I was inspired by this card to 'ramp up' the design so I made the second card below.

Card Two
For the second card I mounted the background onto grey card, as before, and added some colour by stamping a few of the separate flower images in Altenew Ruby Red and Orange Cream inks. I haven't yet got the co-ordinating die set so I fussy cut the flowers out. 

I rifled through my dies and found this MFT Celebrate die, which I cut from silver card and twice more from red card. I stacked the sentiment die cuts, very slightly offsetting the silver layer so that a touch of the red card could be seen, to pick up the red from the flowers. 


I played around with the layout until I was happy with my placement and then added a few orange sequins from my stash to compliment the orange flowers. 


I was really pleased with this 'amped up' version. You could use all sorts of colours for the separate flowers, and you could make the background more or less vibrant...which leads me to the final card.

Card Three
I wondered what the background would look like stamped in a really vibrant colour, with the separate flower stamps used to fill in the white spaces. I also wondered whether the background stamp would lend itself to being extended, to fill a slimline card, for example. So, with the help of my trusty MISTI, a bit of jiggling around and practice stamping, I managed to get the result I was looking for:


This stamp set is not a neat and tidy set - its charm is in its fluid design - so the flowers don't completely match the empty spaces. I used Distress Oxide Salty Ocean for the bold blue background layer, and Dried Marigold and Picked Raspberry for the beautiful accent flowers. I chose card from my stash to cut the Peony Dream 3D flowers, which I love, and stacked these towards the top third of my card. 


The foiled sentiment is another of my own.


I made a matching envelope and, just for a little extra, I added a scrap from the patterned piece to the front of it. 


And here they are together, simple, amped up and WOW! It just goes to show, though, what you can achieve with the same stamp set, and I'm delighted with the results. 

So, until next time, my crafty friends, stay safe, stay well and keep crafting. 

Peri x

Supplies:
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1 comment:

  1. I really like this stamp set Peri - it's a bit like the 'little black dress' if the craft world because you can dress it up or down according to the occasion!Three more lovely cards too!

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