Hi bloggers! Happy Saturday to you! We’re pleased to bring you TWO lovely cards featuring Penny Black stamps from Lin Brandyberry who happens to also be a Design Team member on our Wednesday challenge blog! Be sure to check out her fabulous work every week!

When I hear September, I go into instant autumn mode, thinking of the beautiful fall colors that I see at this time of year!  So when I was asked to make something for Simon’s STAMPtember® event, it was an easy choice, and I made 2 cards for you!   For my first card, I chose my favorite Penny Black flower stamp set, Petal Party, and did it up in fall colors.  I stamped the beautiful flower twice, coloring them with markers, and then carefully cut them out.  I love the look of text on a card, so I used this delicate script as my background for them, framing it with some paper lace.  I chose my sentiment from the So Blessed cling stamp set; don’t you love the beautiful mixed font?  I mounted it with some foam squares to raise it a bit, as I did the gold flower head.   And to finish I added a twine bow and colored pearls.

A hint I’d like to share for both coloring and fussy-cutting is to heat emboss the image after stamping it. First, the embossing helps you to stay in the lines when coloring small areas, and secondly, when cutting out the image, the embossed line gives you a little  hard edge to cut beside.

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I went in a whole different direction with my 2nd card, using a very simple design.  I chose a favorite cling called Floral Thread as my main focus, and stamped and heat embossed it on white cardstock, then used distress inks to sponge in the background with more autumn shades.  These colors makes me think of looking up through the branches of a maple tree and seeing some patches of that clear blue sky we get in the fall.  I trimmed this into a panel, framed it with a solid paper, and then added it to my white card base along with a sentiment from the Friendship clear set and some enamel dots to mimic the colors in my panel.

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BONUS!

Enjoy a special and EXCLUSIVE coupon code to our store when you stop on over to Lin’s blog!  Be sure to check it out!!