Thursday, October 9, 2014

Merry and Bright

Sometimes, pulling out old alphabet sets feels a bit like meeting old friends to play. Here's a card using two old SU wood-mounted alphabet sets...it was a workout for my stamp positioner!



No matter what I did, the Letterpress alphabet (the tall one) looked blotchy. This card uses VersaMagic rocket red...a rich, creamy ink that usually gives a great, smooth, even impression. I tried several inks, and this one definitely looked the best, but I'm not entirely happy with it. I've noticed this problem with the set before, and wonder if there's something wrong with it.

The Typeset alphabet, though, gave me great images with any ink. Weird. I ended up using Impress Ink's grass. I love using a non-traditional shade of green for the holidays. It looks so fresh and fun!

To make this card, I drew a pencil line and stamped MERRY first. Then, another pencil line, and I stamped & bright backward, starting with the t. Finally, I added the holly sprigs and rhinestones in two different sizes.

Isn't it lovely when stamp sets and embellishments contain different sizes of the same thing? Of course it is!

The toughest part of a card like this is getting the spacing between letters right. Even spacing isn't a factor of measuring so much as feel. It can be tricky, and using a stamp positioner with the wood-mounted stamps is absolutely critical.

My out-of-town guests left today, but it's going to take a while for things to get back to normal around here. Not only do I have to catch up on the much-neglected stuff of ordinary life, I'm also working on The Circle Maker study by Mark Batterson, which I will teach at my church starting next Tuesday. Y'all, it feels so good to be developing lesson plans again!

But it will also feel good to get into my craft room later today and make stuff. Oh, yay!!!! I hope you're getting crafty, too. Remember the OLS challenge!

Supplies
stamps: SU, Papertrey (holly jolly)
ink: VersaColor, Impress
paper: Papertrey white
accessories: rhinestones, stamp positioner

3 comments:

  1. I like the different sizes of the letters, nice work! I have some SU stamps too (clear stamps), and most of my inkpads do not match with them. Only SU inkpads give great results with the SU stamps, in my experience.

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  2. Gorgeous card!!!!!!!! It had to be very difficult to get it to look so fabulous!!! Someday I hope to try this!

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  3. I love this graphic card, although i can't help thinking how it would look with the colours reversed? Somehow, 'bright' should be red in my mind! Anyway, good work on the stamps lining up, wood mount alphabets are so intimidating :). Re: the blotchiness, did it always occur in the same places? It may be the rubber is slightly uneven, so it picks up the ink and stamps unevenly?

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!