Christmas Tree Joy Background, Skipping Stones Design

Hello there my friends! I hope you are enjoying the daily inspiration that the Skipping Stones Design Team is providing for you. So many lovely ideas!

You still have a few more days to leave a comment for our blog hop, so don't forget to leave comments!

For our blog hop, we all had to do a technique or tip. I mentioned in my blog post that I was using background stamps in unconventional ways. For this blog post, I'm using a regular stamp image to make a background image. This was so easy to do and the results are fabulous.

I used the Joy stamp set, specifically the Christmas Tree image, to stamp a background. Since the stamps are photopolymer, the stem was getting in the way so I snipped it off. Don't worry! They won't cry! You can simply put it back together when you want to use the entire image. You can get a lot of mileage out of your photopolymer stamps by giving them a snip here and there. Just be sure that you do it with quality scissors – I like to use Tim Holtz Tonic Scissors for precise cuts.

How I achieved this look was to cut a piece of white card stock to 4-1/8 x 5-3/8. I started stamping at the bottom but with only half of the tree on the card stock line. I used the rock 'n roll technique for color variation. You would never know that the stamp is just a regular ole' Christmas Tree stamp. I used my trusty MISTI to line up the tree each and every time. I also cleaned the stamp too. If you position the stamp and there's still ink on it, it will transfer to your card stock. If I didn't use the MISTI, lining up the stamp would have been very easy because of the continuity of the markings in the stamp. Once I finished my stamping, I then trimmed down the card stock to a size that highlighted the consistency of the Christmas Tree, of 4 x 4-3/4. I then wrapped some gold glitter tape around my background to make it look like a Christmas present. I stamped the sentiment with red ink and sprinkled clear embossing powder and clear sparkle embossing powder over the sentiment and then heat set it. I used Spellbinders Card Creator S5-216, Tranquil Moments, to die-cut my sentiment. I then used red foil paper to die-cut once again. I snipped off the bottoms of the sentiment die-cut and adhered it to the red foil paper with a few gold brads, which is something I haven't used in a very long time.

Although this card is very simple, it does pack a punch and making your own background is just plain fun. These days, so many products are available to us that sometimes takes the joy and creative process out of the equation. I think that making your own custom backgrounds using stamps is a technique that has been forgotten.

You could even use the sentiment and repeatedly stamp it in various colors or just one color for your own background paper.

Let's see what you can do going old school and make your own background paper on your next project. Don't forget to leave a comment with a link directly to your blog post so that we all can take a look at what you've done and get inspired!

Thank you so very much for stopping by to visit us today and be sure to come back tomorrow for more inspiration. Have a great day and God bless!