Getting back to my roots.

Good morning! Today, I’m getting back to my roots. Most of my posts center around an image that has been colored in some way. I found Zig markers about 2.5 years ago, then found Prismacolors, and I haven’t looked back since. But when I saw the new Southern Florals 1 and 2 from Wplus9’s most recent release, I knew that I absolutely had to have them, even though there was, gasp, no coloring involved. I have always adored Rifle Paper Company’s designs, and those beautiful stamps that Dawn designed just scream RPC!! I received the stamps last week, and almost immediately sat down and cranked out two different cards with them. This first project used the stamps from Southern Florals 1 with my Distress Oxide inks (I only have a few right now, because I wasn’t sure if I would truly *need* them all…. oh my, I most certainly do! The newest set is totally on their way to me after creating this project.)

I wanted to create my own custom pattern, but I wanted to make it on a colored backdrop, like in those pretty Rifle Paper Co wrapping papers. Now, there are ways of doing this that don’t require Oxide inks… stamping the image in white pigment ink first, then stamping the colored dye ink over the top, stamping everything on white card stock, then masking all of the images and blending color into the background, etc. But one of the qualities that drew me to the Oxide line was the ability to stamp on dark card stock, and so I thought this stamp set would be perfect to try this technique out on some colored cardstock!

Because I only have a select few of the Oxide line (and I hadn’t received the new set when I created this card), I had to do a little improvisation with the layering. Whenever I create a custom background pattern, I always start with the largest image first: in this case, the heart shaped pink flower from Wplus9’s Southern Florals 1. I stamped it in Worn Lipstick Oxide, then stamped the detail portion using white pigment ink from PTI. I added the foliage in Cracked Pistachio Oxide, the purple flower in Wilted Violet with leaves of Broken China, tiny little flowers in white pigment ink, and the little stamens in Spiced Marmalade. I was so thrilled with how vibrant the colors remained on my aqua card stock. A game changer for me, for sure!!

I used the Sentiment Splits dies and stamps from Papertrey Ink to create the nice little curved section on my card front. I stamped the greeting in Hero Arts’s Raspberry Jam ink, then popped the stamped panel up with dimensional adhesive.

The final touch was to add a cute little twine bow towards the top to add a bit more texture to the finished card.

That’s it! So simple, but the effect those Oxide inks have with that colored card stock…. gah. I’m in love. Excuse me while I go dig out all of my non-coloring stamp sets. Hope you are having a fantastic day, friends! I will be back tomorrow morning for the Honey Bee Stamps blog hop for their new release, which is totally mer-mazing!