Colour-blocked daisies

I celebrated World Card Making Day on Saturday with an Open House. This was also my new catalogue open house, and my first time having all my stamping friends over to the new house. My parents were visiting too, so it was a celebration all around.



One of the projects we made was this card, which was inspired by this card by cullenwr on splitcoast. I knew I wanted to do a sponged silhouette technique and had a great card planned out with Fresh Cuts, but at the last minute (as in the night before 14 people were coming to stamp), I decided to change the design. Much as I love Fresh Cuts, I thought it would be hard for people to get the square stamped straight the first time. It's much easier to stamp and then cut it out, but with that many people stamping, I wanted to minimize the steps.



I turned to Upsy Daisy for a quick and easy silhouette but I couldn't get the layout right with a deadline looming. When I saw cullenwr's card at work (it was lunch time!), I knew colour blocking was the answer. It's quick, easy, and has the wow factor I wanted for the Open House.



The silhouette is stamped using a sponging technique I learned in my Stampin' Up demonstrator magazine. You stamp the whole image with the lightest colour (here it's Baja Breeze) then you sponge on additional colours here and there (here we used Kiwi Kiss and Pacific Point). Everything is mounted on coordinating cardstock with Chocolate Chip as the grounding neutral. People could choose one of the three sentiments in this stamp set and stamp it in Chocolate Chip. A Kiwi Kiss/Vanilla ribbon finishes it off.



The other project was a gift tag, heat embossed in gold or silver on burgundy or hunter, using the scrolly frame stamp from Holy Triptych.



My Open House was a lot of fun - I met some new people and sent many retired stamps and accessories to new and loving homes. I'll miss them, but it's time for them to get the TLI (tender loving ink) they deserve. Thanks to all the ladies for coming out (and thanks to all my helpers for making it happen)!





Thanks for stopping by!



All supplies Stampin' Up: Stamp: Upsy Daisy; Ink: Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Chocolate Chip; Paper: Very Vanilla, Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Chocolate Chip; Accessories: dimensionals, Kiwi Kiss ribbon, stampin' sponge.