Hi Everyone! It's Jenny here, and I'm so pleased to be joining you again on Catherine's blog! I have two cards to share with you today, both featuring the Storybook Collection, and my favorite stamp from the Collection – Take Courage – which has a gorgeously detailed Ginkgo leaf on it which I just love, as well as some super inspirational sentiments for those encouragement and support cards we all need.
To create my first card, I stamped the smaller Ginkgo leaf from the Take Courage stamp set all over an A2 size panel of Sand Dunes cardstock in WOW! Embossing ink, and heat embossed in WOW! Metallic Gold Embossing Powder. I then adhered it to a Premium White notecard.
I then stamped the main Gingko image on a separate piece of Sand Dunes in Rouge ink (just love how red this is even on a darker cardstock) and die cut it out with the coordinating Take Courage die. I popped it up onto the heat embossed panel with foam tape.
I die cut the Be Strong die several times from Premium White cardstock and adhered them together with liquid glue. This die is very intricate and so I highly recommend using a metal shim in your die cutting machine for a nice clean cut. Lay a few acrylic blocks on top while the glue dries, and when dry, adhere directly onto the main Ginkgo image.
My Rise Up sentiment is also in the Take Courage stamp set. I stamped it in embossing ink onto a scrap of white cardstock and embossed with the same Metallic Gold embossing powder, trimmed it out and popped it up on foam tape. As a finishing touch I added a few gold sequins from Vegas Baby! to coordinate with the gold EP.
For my second card, I stamped the main Ginkgo image in Icing on the Cake on white cardstock. I heat dried it and then colored it with my CP inks – you can do this easily by smushing them on a craft mat and then picking them up with a Zig Blender pen and just ‘paint' onto the image. I used Sage, Eucalyptus and Spruce for shading.
I then took another A2 panel of Sand Dunes cardstock and die cut the Ginkgo image using the Take Courage coordinating die. I overlaid this over the top of my colored image so they lined up and then adhered them together, trimming off any excess white cardstock that peeped out.
I stamped some embellishment images to frame the image including the the corner frame in Eucalyptus and the flourish in Sage. Again, as for the first card, you can see how bright and true the colors are on a darker cardstock. I also stamped the sentiments from the set directly onto the card panel using Eucalyptus and Spruce. As a finishing touch, I used the Green Mountains sequins, which coordinate perfectly, for a more rustic and nature type look.
Love this stamp set so much, I think I've made half a dozen cards with just that image and die alone. It's super versatile – have a play and see what you can come up with!
Jenny
