Have you heard of Winnie & Walter's Share the Love Week? Next week our design team will join forces with the Winnie & Walter team to share some fabulous projects and challenges with you! Be certain to join us between June 20-25 here in the CLASSroom to be inspired, have some fun and enjoy savings and gifts!
We are thrilled to have Kelly Griglione here with us today as she kicks off this special event! Kelly's work has caught my eye on many occasions - her work is so very clever, precise and BEAUTIFULLY done! When I met her at CHA I had to ask for her card so that I would be able to get in contact with her --- I knew I would like to have her share her work with you here in the CLASSroom.
Kelly showcases all sorts of ingenious ideas on her blog Notable Nest. I would like to encourage you to head over there and bookmark it as well as share some comment love with her thanking her for sharing her creativity with us here in the CLASSroom. Look for the post where Kelly shares a peek at the projects below along with the opportunity to randomly win a $50 shopping spree in our store!
Stay tuned here in the CLASSroom and head over to Winnie & Walter's blog next week as we share incredible samples and challenges!
THANK YOU Kelly for sharing your inspired projects with all of us - I can see loads of stunning floral die-cut tags on packages in my future! -Ellen
Hi folks! I'm am absolutely thrilled to be joining you in the CLASSroom today! It's such a pleasure to be "Sharing the Love" with two of my very favorite stamp companies, Essentials by Ellen and Winnie & Walter. I've been itching to play with the Mondo Hydrangea stamp and die set from the Essentials by Ellen Winter Release. The hydrangea was instantly popular, selling out on the very first day of the release, if I recall. For this post I'd love to take a bigger picture approach and share ideas on how to use the stamp set, instead of focusing on how to make one particular card. Even if you don't have this exact stamp set (although, seriously, why don't you?!?) you can apply these ideas to virtually any large, detailed stamp you own. So let's get to it!
FIVE different ways to use the hottest flower stamp on the market:
1) Stamp it on patterned paper.
It always amazes me how little you notice, if at all, the underlying pattern when you color a stamp directly on patterned paper. The key is picking something with either a subtle pattern, and/or one without strong colors. These hydrangeas were painted with watercolor, and you can see on the right, where I've used multiple colors, that the triangle pattern doesn't show through. On the left, where I've just used one light color, you can still slightly see the triangle pattern, but it's not disruptive to the overall image.
A nice benefit to this technique is that it gives the look that you fussy cut the image and adhered it to patterned paper, without all the effort of fussy cutting!
2) Stamp it as a background.
With large stamps like this, it’s SO EASY to quickly cover your card base. This is a great idea for when you need to make multiples of cards, like for a set, or for a particular occasion (end of school teacher cards from a couple weeks ago!) When you have a large stamped base like this, you don’t need to spend a lot of time or effort making the rest of the card shine, so that’s when I pull out one of the large Winnie & Walter sentiments, like this one from In a Word: Hello. For the background of the card I used a few different shades of aqua ink, making sure to stamp the darker colored ink on either side of the sentiment to balance it out.
The Hello die has a layer of black fun foam underneath for dimension. I probably could have stopped there, but I ended up adding a cute felt bow from Winnie & Walter Take a Bow, and a tiny heart that I outlined.
3) Make a unique patterned paper.
Have you noticed how popular adult coloring books have become, with super detailed, black and white images to color in? This technique mimics that look with lots of detailed black “scribbles” acting as a patterned paper.
I started out stamping the large hydrangea the same way I stamped it for the background of the previous card, completely covering the card base without overlapping the images at all. Then I rotated the card base and stamped another full background, taking care to not line up any of the flower images, and not to overlap the overall flower image. This results in an evenly scribbled pattern.
For the sentiment, I stamped and embossed Winnie & Walter’s The Big the Bold and Friends on the heart from Winnie & Walter’s Flawless Heart Cutaway. The heart is outlined with a white gel pen. Also, not sure if you’ve noticed so far, but I really enjoy cutting 4 ¼ x 5 ½ pieces of patterned paper to line the INSIDES of my cards. The inside is half the real estate of your card after all! When it’s time for me to write inside the card I’ll grab a few pieces of paper from my scrap drawer, adhere those on the inside, and write my message.
4) Stamp on a die cut.
You don’t always have to use the entire image, especially when working with such large stamps as the Mondo Hydrangea. Sometimes it’s nice to use the image to fill the inside of a smaller die cut.
Using the same Flawless Heart Cutaway from Winnie & Walter, I stamped the Mondo Hydrangea once and then started coloring in the petals with my Copics in pink and coral colors. To get a different look than the colored hydrangeas in the first card, I colored the negative spaces in a dark gray. Not having any white on the heart gives it a rich feel, almost like a pattern you would find on fabric.
The sentiment is another one from Winnie & Walter’s The Big the Bold and Friends. The heart is backed with black fun foam for dimension. I ran a dark gray marker along the edges of the heart to make sure there wasn’t any white showing.
5) Make a shaped card. Bonus points for making it 3D!
These cards are always good for when you have an odd-shaped present for someone and just want to tie on a little note card, instead of figuring out how to attach a larger, A2-sized card. Large stamp and die combinations like the Mondo Hydrangea are perfect for this purpose.
To make a shaped card, you want to position the die so it’s hanging off the fold of your cardstock. That way, when you run it through the die cutting machine, the two shapes will remain connected by the fold.
Once you have the folded card base cut, you’ll want to cut another layer as you normally would, and adhere that to the base. This will give you a full image to stamp and color on.
I’ve used a selection of blue and purple Copics to color the petals. Here’s where the 3D opportunities come in … the Mondo Hydrangea set comes with two extra flowers for you to add separately to your main hydrangea image. Once I cut, embossed and colored three of these flowers, I cut in between the petals so I could bend each one up from the center. I really love how this makes the flower come alive! The sentiment is from Winnie & Walter’s Bubble Talk, and is tucked underneath one of the 3D flowers. When I use thin strips of paper like this for a sentiment I like to curl it slightly with my fingers so it looks like a flag blowing in the breeze.
Well there you have it, five different ways to use a large-image stamp set like the Essentials By Ellen Mondo Hydrangea stamp and die set. I hope this gives you some ideas if you’re stuck in a stamp-it-once-in-the-middle-of-a-card rut (not that there’s anything wrong with that, because that’s a good look too, but it’s good to have other options!)
Thanks so much for looking!
-Kelly
