Strawberries for Summer!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Happy Independence Day to those in the United States, and happy summer to those elsewhere! Very little embodies summertime more to me than juicy red strawberries, and the Strawbeary stamp set designed by my friend Alberto Gava for Simon Says Stamp is absolutely darling… almost too cute for words! I have been hoping for an opportunity to do one of my favorite things with this stamp set: create custom patterned paper! Let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping my custom patterned paper on an A2 panel of Hammermill cardstock using Intens-ified Black Ink from Hero Arts. I started with the largest strawberry from Strawbeary, rotating the stamp slightly each time that I stamped it, sometimes stamping it entirely, sometimes stamping off of the edge, to create the illusion of a continuous pattern. Next, I used a smaller strawberry, stamping in some of the blank areas on the card front, then a leaf, then a flower, working my way down the selected individual stamps from largest to smallest and filling in the open spaces, all the time rotating the stamps to create a random, playful pattern. I also stamped the sweet little bear marching along with his strawberry on a separate piece of cardstock.

I used my OLO markers to color the images, adding in some white gel pen dots to the strawberry seeds.

After I’d finished coloring the background and die cutting the sweet bear, I stamped a greeting from Strawbeary on some white cardstock strips using black pigment ink and clear embossing powder. I like to use this combination when stamping greetings; the embossing helps to make the sentiment super crisp and dark!

To help make the sentiment and bear die cut stand out from the busy, colorful patterned background, I trimmed a wide strip of heavyweight vellum down and laid it in the center of the patterned paper, then arranged my die cuts and sentiment strips on the vellum. Before adhering the vellum portion, I adhered the die cut and sentiment pieces to the vellum and flipped it over, adding dots of adhesive behind the solid die cuts. I adhered the vellum strip in the center of the patterned panel, then added a black frame cut with the A2 Thin Frames die and some Pitch Black cardstock, directly over the top of the vellum. This adheres the vellum even more securely to the card front without marring it with globs of adhesive. Score! The final touch was a few shimmering iridescent green gems.

Well, that’s all for my project today! Have you tried stamping your own custom patterned background? It’s so fun! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy summer!