Welcome to April’s Blog Hop! Who are the Casually Crafting Design Team you may ask? We are made up of Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators from around the world we love to hop each month with projects to inspire those who may be new to crafting or might like a simpler and more basic approach to crafting. The emphasis is on the use of our coordinating card, inks, DSP (patterned paper) and simple stamping with our fabulous stamp sets to create projects that are easy to duplicate, but are stylish and eyecatching.

It’s a Sketch Challenge

Sketches are a fantastic way to get started when we struggle for inspiration. They can be interpreted exactly as they are or you can rotate them, adjust and change the shapes of the elements or just use them to get you going. I love sketches and there are no shortage of wonderful sketches out there to help get your creativity flowing again when it’s hit a roadblock.

Today’s sketch I have interpreted slightly differently I have flipped my elements from the left to the right.

Supplies

• Sahara Sand Card Base – 1/2 A4 sheet cut at 10.5cm scored at 14.8cm
• Sahara Sand Love You Always Designer Series Paper
• 2 1/4 inch Circle Punch (Retiring)
• Double Oval Punch
• Basic White Card for stamping
• Soft Sea Foam Card for stamping
• Pale Papaya Card for punching
• Pale Papaya Ink
• Pale Papaya Stampin Write Marker
• Basic Grey Ink
• Stamp Sets listed below.

My Featured Stamp Set

I love stamp sets with outlined images that can coloured in a multitude of ways and Jar of Flowers really is a go to set for me. I love all the images but the one that has the Rose and Anenomies is my favourite in the set and gets inked by far the most.

Technique 1 – Paper Piecing

I wanted to show an alternative way to colour in your outline floral images by using other stamps that have texture as the ‘colour fill’. The texture that this creates makes for such striking and realistic flowers when the outline image is stamped on top.

I took the opportunity to play with the brand new, soon to be released (May 4th) In-Colours and settled on Pale Papaya which might actually be my new favourite, but it has strong competition so I’m fickle!

Using The Hydrangea Stamp from the retiring Beautiful Friendship stamp set I tried stamping this image in all the new colours to decide on my colour scheme.

after choosing the Pale Papaya I fussy cut out all the flowers and cut off the leaves and foliage, I didn’t need those. I then stamped the image again on Soft Sea Foam Card and fussy cut this not being too concerned about the floral section but allowing enough of the floral area in my trimming to stick the Pale Papaya coloured section over top.

When both are layered together the result is really pretty and I love using this technique to get a much more unique multi tonal image than can be achieved with regular colouring tools.

Technique 2 – Dot Colouring

I decided that although there was a lot of ‘white space’ on the sketch, (the term White Space refers to emptiness on the card) I really can find the less is more style tricky, yes I know, we all have our challenges!!

With that in mind I decided I would like to create some interest behind the 2 1/4 inch punched circle element. punched from the Sahara Sand Patterned Paper. To accomplish this I drew arround the shape lightly with a pencil on my card front in the middle of the right side of my card so that it could be rubbed out later, and then used one of the fabulous Stampin Write Markers from the new In-Colours. My Pale Papaya marker has 2 different nibs so I began with the thicker nib keeping the marker at a 90 degree angle I touched it gently on my card base around the circle shape and outwards creating a dot and then repeating until I was happy. I then filled in some of the gaps in the same manner with the thinner tip that happens to be much finer and more subtle. I also added some spritzing using the thicker tip and flicking with the edge of the lid to add speckles to the card. I did this before I assembled anything, it can get a litle messy.

I love the metallic look from the Love You Always Speciality Designer Paper in Sahara Sand that the punched circle adds. My sentiment came fron the Lovely You stamp set to make this an any ocaision card and was punched out with the small plain oval from the Double Oval Punch. I created the Pale Papaya faux Oval by cutting apart two of the plain small ovals and layering them behind the white sentiment to create the effect of a slightly larger layer. This is a trick that works with most of your punches, give it a try!

I popped up the floral element on dimensionals to add some extra depth and shadow. I was really pleased with the card. I urge you to think about what busy textured stamps you might have and whether they might make a great infill for an outline image. It’s great fun thinking outside the box but having the structure of a sketch as a jumping off point.

Thanks so much for joining me today it’s been great to have you stop by! Take a peek at what my fellow Demonstrators around the world have been creating inspired by this month’s sketch.

All the products that I use are from my Stampin Up, whyI hear you ask? Well because they are the best coordinating products around and they can be purchased from my online store HERE If use my host code below when you shop you will receive an extra gift from me at the end of April.

Love Bel x