Clean and Simple from the Other Side
Greetings from cold snowy Michigan. It is the first week of November and we have snow on the ground. So happy I pulled my car into the garage last night. Snow on the ground always looks so pretty, simple and clean when it first covers the ground. I am not talking the post road-plow brown sludge that gets thrown everywhere but the in the country rolling hills of pristine white ground. If you read my sisters post you know that we set a clean and simple challenge for ourselves. Like clean look of the snow on the ground our goal was to break away for our usual style and try to complete some cards that are simple yet striking. I completed three cards for our mutual sister vs sister challenge.
I will admit I sat staring at white paper for a while trying to figure out what to do. Finally when I still didn’t have any inspiration I turned to Pinterest. What would we do without that valuable site. The first card is admittedly ripped from a pin I saw. Yes I made adjustments but one would think simple would be easy and sometimes it isn’t. Using a large focal stamp from Stampin Up, I strategically place my ink on the stamp so the stem would not be blue. This was not one of the layered stamps that are so popular right now but you can mimic it by using a stamp placement tool and a few simple techniques. I simply removed the ink from the stem prior to stamping in light blue. Then I used a slightly darker blue and dabbed that on in small areas across the stamp to provide some variation in color. Finally I inked up the stem in green to finish off the stamp. I love my stamp placement tool for such occasions. To finish I trimmed it down and placed it on a white card base. I do love the look of white on white. I find I use this frequently especially if I am using alcohol inks as my focal image.
My second card I found a few stamp sets that had small filler Christmas stamps. Some baubles, stars, circles. I used some seasonal colors and stamped them randomly across the card to look like they are falling down the card. I used a large focal sentiment. Clear Nuvo drops were added to the baubles to add some dimension. This was stamped directly on the card base of Neenah Solar White 80lb cardstock.
For my last card I took inspiration from the weather outside. It was blowing snow when I started this one. I decided snowflakes blowing across the card would be a good seasonal look. I have one stamp that gives me the base of drifting flakes but it didn’t cover as much of the paper as I wanted it to, so I pulled out random individual snowflake stamps to fill in and add to the drift of snow. I added a large sentiment to complete it. You can’t see it in the picture but I spritz the whole card with so some shimmer spray that I love so the whole card shimmers like snow.
I did enjoy this trial of clean and simple. One thing I learned was to be very careful when stamping. I usually get inky fingers and have been known to place a strategic embellishment over a blurred image or thumbprint. There is no covering up of mistakes in these cards. These would lend well to multi-card techniques. Just leave your stamps in your stamp tool and you can whip out a set to give as a gift quickly. As always thanks for stopping by and let us know if you saw something you liked or if there is something you would like us to try.
