Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Simon Says.......Make Your Own Background


It's Wednesday already, and that means a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog!


This week our theme is Make Your Own Background!  No patterned papers unless you have altered them, please.  You can emboss, stamp, stencil, paint, spray, etc......have fun with this!!  The design team are using stencils or Gelli Plates to make our backgrounds.  If you have these, we'd love to see your work with them, too.  

I played with 2 different stencils this week and made 2 cards today, using some of the same elements.


I started this card by stamping the Penny Black Christmas Cottage on a white piece of cardstock, and coloring it minimally with markers.  Then I sponged on faded jeans and a little broken china distress inks to make the sky.  After making sure that everything was dry, I then attached my panel to the Simon exclusive Falling Snow stencil and used some modeling paste to make my snowflakes.  After more drying time, I attached my Impression Obsession birch trees and the included cardinals die-cuts to my card, and then stamped my sentiment (Hero Arts Miracle of the Holidays stamped in Red Royal mid-tone ink) on another panel of torn white cardstock and attached everything to a red card base.  I hope you can see the fun dimension that the modeling paste gives to my card; still quite mailable.

For this next card I used the same Christmas Cottage and a sentiment from the same set, but used this amazing Dyan Reaveley Let it Snow stencil:


This time I stamped my cottage on the left side of my panel, then sponged on faded jeans and salty ocean distress inks for the background.  Again, I colored the stamped image with red and green markers, and stamped my sentiment in the lower right in Red Royal ink.  Because of the placement of the cottage, I had to mask out a large snowflake from my stencil, but after that I just applied modeling paste to the stencil as I did above, lifted it carefully and sprinkled it with Hero Arts prisma glitter.  This took a little longer to dry, and it warps the paper a bit as it does, but after my card was completely dried and put together, I put it under a pile of heavy books, and that helped straighten everything out pretty well, without doing any damage to the stencilled image.

I plan to use these and various variations of them for my Christmas cards this year.  I hope you'll give these stencils a try - they are really easy to work with, and you don't have to use a modeling or embossing paste with them - they can be inked or sprayed for the same beautiful results.  

As always, our generous Heidi has provided us with another $50.00 gift voucher



Simon Says Stamp

I can't wait to see what you make for us this week!  Have fun!

16 comments:

Barb said...

Love them both, Lin, but the one with the birdies is my fave - gorgeous details - beautiful work! ♥

Emily Leiphart said...

These are outstanding, Lin! Both of your scenes are gorgeous. I want to buy those birch tree dies and the snowflake stencil!

Anonymous said...

Lin:
theses are both amazing I love everything you did with these card. again just Gorgeous.
hugs
Dottie

email: Steph@SimonSaysStamp.com said...

Gorgeous scenes! Love the texture of the backgrounds too!

*mwah*
Steph
Simon Says Stamp!

Sue McRae said...

Such wonderful wintry scenes Lin! I especially like the first one with the birch trees and cardinals.

Heather said...

Both gorgeous card Lin, I love the scenes beautiful colouring and fabulous use of the stencils!!

hugs
Heather xx

Maureen Morton said...

You are making such magic with these stencils, Lin! I just can't get into it, but these are both stunning. Love that cozy image, too.

Lisa Elton said...

What pretty little scenes Lin, lovely cards!

rcwidow (Linda) said...

These are beautiful!

debby4000 said...

Absolutely love them both.
luv
Debby

Dawn T said...

What super gorgeous cards Lin. Your backgrounds are wonderful. The use of your stencils is great.

maria f. said...

Wow - I want to go there. To that cottage in the first card. Now.

Karin Ã…kesdotter said...

AMAZING bg Lin!!! And I love those die cut birches - sooo Beautiful!!!

CinnamonSally said...

These are gorgeous Lin, I love the vintage feel to them!

Cecilia Hsieh said...

Love these cards Lin!

Jo Nevill said...

Very beautiful cards Lin, gorgeous scenes.

Jo x