Spectacular Solid Stamps

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I really love today's Friday Focus: How to use Solid Stamps.

There really are so many wonderful uses for a solid stamp and the wonderful Leslie Miller has challenged the Design Team girls to show off new ways to use them. Be sure to check out Leslie's tutorial at the Flourishes Newsletter too!

One of the ways I love to use solid stamps is to ink them up with my Stampin' Write Markers and stamp them down giving an image multiple colors.

BUT...you can also step that up a notch too!


I sort of found this out by accident actually. When you used a water-based marker on a polymer stamp, sometime the ink beads a little and despite huffing and puffing you don't get a perfectly clean image. So, after stamping, I take out those same Stampin' Write markers and use the brush tip AND the fine tip, to create depths in the stamped image to make it look more realistic.

Here I've taken my Bashful Blue marker on these Checkered Lilies from the Spring Ephemerals set, and added some shadows at the top of the blossoms and at the petal tips with my brush tip, then added details lines with my fine tip. This takes a very light hand! And not too much color. Less is better. Then I added a tiny touch of Ballet Blue with the fine tip side to the deepest areas. The biggest thing to remember is leaving enough white or light space to keep it looking realistic. I find this technique works best on smaller images too.



Doesn't it give it a great look? On the leaves and stem I used Certainly Celery and a tiny touch of Old Olive with the fine tip.

And I LOVE how it turned out. Some cards you make and just fall in love! I think it's the Lily Kate Basic Grey paper too. I love the soft combinations of blues and greens.

I used my Pierceabilties border to trim the edges of the long horizontal panel and added simple satin ribbon tied in a knot and Kaiser pearls as accent.

Be sure to see what the rest of the design team has come up with - using their solid stamps.

Cindy Lawrence,
Laura Fredrickson
Julie Koerber
Faith Hofrichter
Latisha Yoast
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan


Recipe: Stamps: Flourishes - Spring Ephemerals; Ink: Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery; Paper: Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, Whisper White, Lily Kate (Basic Grey) DSP; Accessories: Big Shot, Pierceabilities Border, Large Rectangle Labels Nestabilities, Blue Satin Ribbon, Kaiser Pearls , Dimensionals, SW Markers.