Back to basics challenge

Sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the craft goodies in my craft room and just seem to collect rather than use them. I look at some of the fab cards on blogs and feel overwhelmed. They are amazing and I couldn't make some of them even if I tried to copy them.

From time to time I like to set myself challenges and I really enjoyed this one. Use white card, one stamp and one inkpad to make 5 different cards. I used a Stampin' Up Real rose pad. I thought it would be really hard, but it got easier as I went along. Ok so none are masterpieces, but I would be happy to send them and most of all I really enjoyed making them. I've left the images big, so if you click on them you can see the backgrounds in more detail.

The card above is simply stamped and layered on a red border. The border was made by running the ink pad around the egde of the card to give a soild layer of colour. I cut my pieces to rough size and cut acurately after sticking, this way I only need to ink the edge. I guess I cheated a little bit using some ribbon.

The second card didn't go as planned. I tried to stamp the swirly parts of the stamp all over the background but it just looked odd. I used a matching marker to isolate the images but after I'd stamped a few on the right I didn't like it. So I rubbed over the images with a baby wipe to dye the card pink. This gave quite an interesting effect with the colour getting lighter across the card. The layering was coloured as above for one layer. The other layer was done by dragging the ink pad diagonally over the egde leaving an interesting effect.

This background was done with cut and dry foam to cover the paper in a random way, this was sprayed with a fine mist of water (you can just wet your hand and splash) dab the paper dry with kitchen roll to remove some of the water, leaving tiny random dots. If you don't have cut and dry try kitchen roll or baby wipes.

I used the rest of the water splash card to make this sideways card - though you could use it either way up. The torn edge is inked along the edge.


I cropped the image to make a square, The first layer is card pressed, with my fingers, against the ink pad to pick up the pattern of the linen ink pad. The third layer is just the flower heads stamped randomly. I used a marker, but if you have a cats eye or dew drop inkpad you could use the point of the pad. The final layer is just direct to paper again. Don't worry about overlapping lines it just adds an interesting effect. Fab easy technique which means you always have matching card.

I was going to stop at five cards, but this last card uses up all the bits I had left over. It was going to be an ATC but the measurements were not quite right. This uses prima flowers and a glitter brad. This is my favorite.

I hope this has inspired you to have a go at your own challenge. Please share any ideas you have.