More is More

Happy Wednesday, friends!  Today I have four cards to share with you – all basically the same and yet each very different from the others.  This all started last week when I needed to make a sympathy card.  There’s a sense in which none of us really want to create sympathy cards, and yet it’s the time we most want to show that we care.  I immediately knew that I wanted to use the classic TE stamp set Discover Your Wings along with one of the new matching dies.  I went to the TE Gallery for inspiration and found a lot of great samples.  The two I was most drawn to right away were this one by Shannon and this one by Joan.

I started by creating my 4 different backgrounds.  Once I had those, I set about to choose coordinating cardstock colors and to heat emboss and die cut the wildflowers to go with each background.

The background for this card was created by brayering ink from a Kaleidacolor pad onto glossy cardstock.  The wildflower image was heat embossed with gold embossing powder onto dark brown cardstock and die cut with the matching die.  I think this has a beautiful calm autumnal look and the gold adds a bit of elegance.

The background for this one was created by brayering a Kaleidacolor pad onto shimmery white cardstock.  The images was stamped and heat embossed with white ink and powder onto teal cardstock and die cut.  I die cut a 2nd time from Not Quite Navy and put it behind and slightly off-set to create some extra depth.  This one feels fresh and cool.

For this background, I was playing with Distress Markers on TE watercolor paper.  It turned out more bold and streaky than I intended and I almost threw it away, but in the end I love how this card turned out.  Instead of embossing this image, I colored it with the same colors of distress markers.  A 2nd layer was die cut from black cardstock to create the shadow. This one is bright and happy.

This background was my 2nd attempt with the Distress Markers on watercolor paper – going for a softer look here.  I also love the way this one turned out!  This time I white embossed onto plum cardstock and die cut. This one is soft and pretty.

Isn’t it fun to see four such different looks from the same stamps and layout? One of my favorite things to do in stamping is to take one stamp set or one paper kit and make several different things with it in one sitting.  I love to just play and try different directions.  I haven’t done much of that in the last couple of years, but I need to do it a lot more.  It actually took me several days to finish all 4 of these cards and that’s ok. I loved every minute of it!

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a great day!