Stamping Large Sentiments

Greetings friends.  Today I want to talk about stamping with large sentiments.  It is a topic I have addressed before, but I thought it would be a good time to revisit it.

I absolutely love the large sentiments by Impression Obsession.  There are inspirational ones, funny ones, practical all-occasion ones, and my absolute favorite....quirky.  One of the things I have noticed though when I want to make a large sentiment the focal point of a card, there isn't a lot of space for dies, embellishments, or stamped images.  Plus, I never want to cover up or take away from the impact of the sentiment.

One way to make a saying stand out is to use a soft background out of stamps or stencils.  For my card today, I started with a kraft notecard, placed a Seth Apter stencil from Stencil Girl on top (Urban Insiders Bar Stencil) and sponged it with Hero Arts Unicorn White ink:

It took a really long time for the ink to dry, but once it was, I sponged the whole thing with yellow and red Pan Pastels.  Having the white ink underneath allowed the pattern to show through the chalk.  I wasn't able to capture it on camera, but I finished the design with some gold shimmer Pan Pastel.  Once I was done blending the chalk, I used a white Prismacolor pencil to highlight elements of the stencil design.  I really wanted what I thought of as the "sun rays" to stand out.

As a last step, I added the You are Capable sentiment onto the card with brown VersaFine ink.  If you wanted the sentiment to stand out even more, you could use black ink instead.

Happy holidays everyone!

IO/Stencil Girl Blog Hop!

The Impression Obsession and StencilGirl Products Teams are hopping together this week!

StencilGirl Products will be giving away a $25 Gift Certificate to TWO lucky winners!

Impression Obsession will be giving away a $25 Gift Certificate to TWO lucky winners!

Visit the fabulous designers from both teams and comment for your chance to win 4 great prizes during the hop!

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN! (One comment per blog please.)

You have until Friday, September 30th at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.

Winners will be announced on StencilGirl's Facebook page on Sunday, October 2nd.

Here are the links to today's hop list:

September 28 
Stencil Girl Talk
Janet Joehlin
Carol Baxter
Laura Fulcher
Jenny Gropp

For my first card today, I combined the Stencil Girl Waterway Stencil with the Impression Obsession Butterfly 4.  To color the butterfly, I used an assortment of Prismacolor Colored Pencils.  For the stenciled background, I used the stencil, watercolor paper, and some Colorburst Powders.  Here is a close up of the background:

For my next card, I used a stencil called Seoul Day and a stamp from Impression Obsession called  She Was Unstoppable.  I have so many wonderful sayings from Impression Obsession, and stencils are really a great way to create a backdrop for them:

I was first attracted to this stencil because of its title.  For those of you who are close to me know,  I am (kind of ) obsessed with Korean dramas.  I have to admit I perked up a bit when I saw the stencil.  You can use it as I did as an abstract background or you can color it to really bring out the shapes of the hanging flags.  To make the card, I placed the stencil down onto white cardstock, sponged it with Versamark ink and then sponged it with chartreuse, turquoise, and dark blue PanPastels.  Here is a close up of the background:

Ps...anyone out there watch Korean dramas?  My family and friends just don't understand what the heck I am doing.  :)

For my finial card, I combined a stencil called Whimsical Waves as well as an Impression Obsession saying called Soul Happy:

Once again I combined Color Burst powders and the stencil to create my watercolor background:

Stenciled Watercolor Birthday Wishes

Greetings everyone.  As you know, I have been doing a lot with the Color Burst Powders lately.  The theme for today's Impression Obsession challenge is "Birthday Wishes," so I decided to break out my Color Bursts yet again along with a stencil I hadn't used before.  It is a stencil from Stencil Girl called "Waterway" and the lines kind of reminded me of streamers.

To make my card, I placed the stencil onto watercolor paper and sprinkled it with Ultramarine Blue and Violet Color Burst Powders.  I spritzed it with water, let the colors blend and removed the stencil.  I made sure to flip the stencil over and press it onto extra paper to get a second print out of my stencil.  After all, there was a lot of paint and water on the stencil.  Why waste it?

Next, I cut out the Wishes (DIE364-E) out of white foam and sprinkled it with glittter.  You can't tell from the original picture, but it does sparkle:

I added a sentiment from the Wishes stamp set that coordinates with the die (MC657).  I embossed it in white so that you would be able to see it well on the card.

For the balloon, I cut it out from the Balloons die set (DIE359-R) and added a piece of die-cut acetate to give it the gloss of a real balloon:

Need more Birthday Wish inspiration?  Be sure to check out the other designers:

Anna Wight
Daniela Dobson
Dina Kowal
Jeanne Streiff
Jenny Gropp
Karen Amidon
Laura Fulcher