One Stamp 5 Ways: Best Friends
Hi friends! Happy Sunday! I’m so excited to share this “One Stamp 5 Ways” special feature by the fabulous Suzy Plantamura with you today! Read on for all the fun details and enjoy!
Hi, Simon Says Stamp friends! I’m guest blogging today with one of my “One Stamp, Five Ways” posts using the Simon Says Stamp Best Friends stamp and die set. I have a series on my blog where I use one stamp set in five different ways to show its versatility and to motivate us to use our stamps in more ways! Today I picked the Best Friends set as I loved all the little animals in this set and the number of images and salutations to pick from. I’ve created five cards to share with you and I have some tips to go along with each one.
I love using my new Distress Oxide Inks for backgrounds as they give me such a saturated look! I used Salty Ocean and Mermaid Lagoon for the sky and Lucky Clover and Twisted Citron for the grass.
Here are some tips for creating this card:
• Use a natural color ink such as SSS Barely Beige to stamp your images so you can color them with a no-line look
• Use colored pencils OVER Copic Markers to add shading and details on your colored images
• Create a “ground” for images using any of the SSS border dies such as the Twisted Stitch Borders die I used here
• When you use Glossy White Tonic Nuvo Drops over Distress Oxide Inks, they pick up the color of the background
This card shows another way to use the four critters holding hands in a shaker card. I changed the look of the stamped images by stamping them in black before coloring.
Here are some tips for creating this card:
• Use any of the SSS background such as this Evergreen Circle one for shaker card openings
• Cover parts of the background with Tonic Nuvo Drops to add dimension as I did here with the trees
• Paint a soft watercolor wash background around the opening by adding lots of water to your watercolor paper first and then dropping in several different colors around the design so they run outward and blend together
Who says animals have to be painted in natural colors? I love color, so I used quite a bit of it in this card that shows a random stamping technique.
Helpful Tips:
• Stamp all of the stamps in a set (or in this case the four animals that were individual) randomly over a card background for a topsy-turvy look
• Mix some black paint with each of your watercolors so the colors have more of a gray-cast and are less bright
• Mix coloring mediums – here I used colored pencils over watercolors to shade
• Add shadows behind each image with a gray colored pencil or marker to give the look of dimension
To get more use out of the animal grouping in this set, I stamped it twice and then cut the animals apart using two sets so I had enough hands.
Here are some tips:
• By stamping the images in a light color of ink and coloring over the outlines, I was able to cut off or color over any of the areas that didn’t belong to that animal
• Use a die-cut with lots of openings such as this Repeating Circles one to ground small images so they don’t get lost on a card
• I tucked part of the animals under each circle and then used foam tape behind the animal so they looked like they are coming out of the openings
• Rub Distress Inks over the openings moving outward so you create a soft background around the die-cut openings
This card only uses one of the animals, but by using a background die, he doesn’t get lost on the card front. I also went with a totally different color scheme to change up the look of the stamps.
Here are some tips for this card:
• When coloring this image, I used some light blue and light pink Copic markers blended in with my grays to make the elephant have a more colorful look
• Outline images with colored pencils when you use a light color of ink to stamp so they have soft colored outlines
• When painting a background, paint just around the die-cut so the color runs outward using a wet on wet technique; add drops of saturated paint by flicking your paintbrush over the background
And there you have it – five ways to use this adorable Best Friends stamp set! Come visit my blog to see more of my “One Stamp, Five Ways” series and thanks so much for visiting today! – Suzy
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Thanks for reading today, and thanks to Suzy for being our guest!
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these are great cards! love the coloring. those animals are darling.
These are fab!!