Hey!

I had planned on writing this blog post last night, but the motherhood exhaustion hit post Bean bedtime and I just chilled instead – sorry!

Anyway, this is one of those types of post that I keep meaning to do more of and then life/other work gets in the way. I had also envisioned I would use more of the stamps from the clear stamp set I am focusing on, but I kinda got hooked on just one of the stamps! Please tell me it’s not just me that has these problems 😉

For my first ‘Stamp Set Focus’, I wanted to use the recently released Background Builders Classics. I felt it needed a little more inky love.

For my first two cards I used the same layout (inspired by Jane’s Uniko DT post HERE). I used the horizontal stripe stamp from the set more as an accent, rather than to build a background too.

For this first card I dusted off some older clear stamp sets. The large bold HAPPY is from All Occasion Sentiments #2 and it is so much fun to stamp it in a rainbow of colours! The flowers are from Flower Power #7 and the smaller script birthday is from Simply Said Birthday. I added a few Nuvo Drops to finish of my design.

As I still had the horizontal stripe stamp positioned in my MISTI, I stamped up another to create my next card. This time combining it with a sentiment from the recently released Sentiments Outlined and accented with some blooms from Beautiful Blooms II.

I love how quick this card was to make, just a little bit of simple stamping and masking for the blooms and a little dimension for the stamped panel.

Next I switched up the orientation of my card and used another of my favourite techniques and paired the stamp with some other ‘older’ Uniko stamps.

Using a stamping tool means your stamp is always in the same place for repeated stamping. This is handy for this technique, where I have used water  based markers to colour my stamp. I have done this technique quite a few times, like HERE.

I used Stampin’ Up! markers in Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and Costal Cabana for a lovely tropical palette to go with images from Paradise and Paradise Leaves.

Lastly, I wanted to ‘build’ a background and this is the result…

Having created a bold background I wanted to showcase it in a way not to take too much focus from it and it also needed a pop of colour.

I used Stampin’ Up! dies to create the HAPPY, which I die cut each letter 3 times and adhered them together with glue. I wanted them to have some dimension but not too much to make the card bulky. Again I used the partially stamped sentiment, script birthday from Simply Said Birthday.

I hope I have inspired you a little and given you some new ideas and techniques to try out. I sure had fun using this one stamp!

Thanks for stopping by.