It is so much fun to share our guest designer, Karolyn Loncon, with you today! It has been my honor to know Karolyn now for several years and to have had the pleasure of her company here in our office/warehouse. Yes, Karolyn lives in the Pacific Northwest during the prettiest months of the year and it is always wonderful to see her when the opportunity arises. Karolyn's clean and simple style has earned her many accolades - she was crowned a Stamping Royalty winner in 2011. She is a "Girl Friday" and works wonders with her electronic cutter as part of the Cameo Spotlight design team.
Karolyn shares many inspirational projects on her blog, Paper Therapy - and yes, it might be her therapy, but I can assure you it will be therapy to just feast your eyes on her delicious projects as well. I would like to invite you to head over to Karolyn's blog and help us say thank you for sharing her talents with us here in the CLASSroom today. Please leave your comment on her post about being our guest and as our way of thanking you for taking the time to do so you will have a chance to win some of the fab goodies used in today's post! You know you are in the right spot if you see the following picture.
Thank you Karolyn for sharing your creativity with us here in the CLASSroom! -Ellen
I was so honored and humbled when Ellen asked me to prepare a little project for you all, especially in light of all the other wonderful guest designers that Ellen has had here. Her CLASSroom is one of my most favorite places to visit to learn about
this craft that I love so much. I’m so excited to share my project with you, and hope that you enjoy it as much as I did preparing it for you. So let’s get to it, shall we?
Let’s be honest – I don’t do a ton of techniques in my crafting life, mostly because my card design style is pretty clean and simple. So when I came across the Velveteen Stamping technique on Shari Carroll’s blog several months ago, I squealed with delight as I feel like it’s a technique that lends itself to clean and simple designs, and offers a huge WOW factor! BONUS!
First, I inked up and stamped the Houndstooth Background from Paper Smooches onto white cardstock with the most amazing white pigment ink that I’ve EVER used – Unicorn Pigment Ink by Hero Arts/Memories! No joke – this ink offers incredible coverage and a perfect image every single time! I can’t imagine my crafting life without this ink – no craft room should be without it! You’re welcome. HeeHee
Back to the project – okay, so you don’t need to wait for the pigment ink to really dry; in fact, this technique really pops when the ink is still a little tacky. It’s also important that the background be stamped in a pigment ink or this technique won’t really work. Next, you’re going to want to choose images to stamp that have a good amount of solid space – silhouettes work best. I used images from another Paper Smooches set called Reflections.
I used three different Hero Arts Dye Inks for the next step, which is to stamp your silhouette images onto the pigment houndstooth background. Again, it’s critical to
use dye inks for your silhouette images as the dye inks will be resisted as they’re stamped onto the pigment ink. As you stamp each image, you’ll want to have a rag or towel available to “blot” the dye ink and allow the houndstooth background to show through. I stamped, blotted, and cleaned the stamp every single time I stamped an image.
I continued this process until I had my desired pattern. I adhered the image panel to a Kraft card base with foam squares. I trimmed out a banner strip and stamped the sentiment, adhering it to the image panel, again with foam squares. To finish off the project, I adhered tiny white pearls to the centers of the flowers, which I think added a really simple yet elegant touch, don’t you?
Here’s a close-up of what the stamping looks like when it’s finished. Isn’t it yummy? I love how that houndstooth pattern peeks through each of the silhouette images to add some great interest and dimension– yet it’s one layer! Amazing, right?!
Well, that’s it for me, kids! I loved sharing my project with you today, and hope that you’ll try this technique for yourself! Thanks so much for joining me in the CLASSroom today!