Guest Post: Simon Says Stamp and Copics on Neenah Desert Storm!

Hi there! I’m so excited to be a guest for Simon Says Stamp this month, and I’ve got a couple of projects to share with you today featuring some new goodies from the January And Back Again release, as well as one of the stamp sets I illustrated, Orchid Rose Bouquet (which also was part of the February Card Kit). I have never colored on Neenah Desert Storm cardstock, and I love the look of red with Kraft cardstock, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do some experimenting! Let’s get started with the details.

The Orchid Rose Bouquet is a huge stamp, great for cutting into pieces and use on multiple projects. I stamped the entirety of the bouquet on a panel of Desert Storm cardstock using Hero Arts’ Intens-ified Black ink. I used Copic markers in several RV shades: T6, RV29, RV25, RV13, RV21 for the orchids, and V06, RV14, RV13, and RV21 for the roses. I had never worked with Desert Storm cardstock before, and I was absolutely stunned at how vibrant the coloring was on this relatively dull color of cardstock! So much fun to work with something different than my usual crisp white cardstock. I fussy cut the entire piece and trimmed it into a few different pieces, edging around the orchids that were fully visible.

My first card is an A7. It takes full advantage of the size of the Orchid Rose Bouquet stamp. I began by die cutting the XO with the Big XOXO die from some glittery red cardstock. I also trimmed one of the fabulous sentiment strips from the Sassy Love Sentiment Strips. (This is my first time using these pre-printed sentiments; they are so much fun and make adding a greeting so darn simple!)

I am a bit of a stickler for cohesive color scheme; once I decide on a color scheme, I like to do my best to make sure that there are no other colors to detract from the overall color palette, like an unseemly white edge to a die cut piece on a colorful cardstock background. Keeping this in mind, I cut an A7 card base from some more Desert Storm cardstock upon which I could arrange my different die cut and colored elements.

I arranged the different elements on the large card front and adhered them using both liquid and foam adhesive to add lots of dimension to the project. The final touch was to add some iridescent red jewels for some more sparkle.

My second card features the leftover portion of the Copic colored Orchid Rose Bouquet as an accent. This piece was trimmed from around one of the fully visible orchids in the bouquet, so portions of the flower were missing. In order to cover this up, I heat embossed one of the greetings from XL Love Greetings on Desert Storm cardstock using Brutus Monroe Poinsettia Embossing Powder. I die cut the sentiment using the coordinating die.

For the card base, I created a subtly textured background by running an A2 panel of Desert Storm cardstock through my die cut machine with the Exotic Vines Embossing Folder. This delicate texture is a perfect backdrop for the brightly colored flowers and sparkly cherry red greeting!

To add a touch more texture and some sparkle to the card base, as well as to create a sort of ground for my greeting and florals, I trimmed a few strips of glittery red cardstock and mounted them vertically on the textured card base. I added the floral piece and greeting die cut using foam adhesive, then added some more sparkling jewels for one last hint of sparkle.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! I hope that you will give Desert Storm cardstock and Copics a try if you haven’t already… what an unexpected delight! Thank you so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!