Stretch Your Stamps: Day 1

I am taking a wee break from the gift card set I promised ya'll to bring you two card I created for Day 1 of the online Stretch Your Stamps. Today was all about using your background in many ways. The samples for the class used Hero Arts Lattice stamp (which I have), but I thought I would try using another Hero Arts stamp I have: Grid Pattern. It was a challenge but then the ideas came and bonus is that A Blog Named Hero is currently haveing a challenge to stretch a stamp at least two ways.

For the card on the left I used my new WMS stamp My Island that a super sweet secret stamp sister gifted me with. I wanted this set the moment I saw the sneak for it and the DT projects just made my little heart flutter for it, so I was bummed when some money issues came up unexpectedly and I wasn't able to place an order. I feel so blessed that someone thought of me and got me this set. It came today and was a total suprise and I thought I would make her a card to let her know that she did indeed bring me some sunshine today. For my Grid Pattern I knew I wanted to try the ombre look that I have been seeing so much of. However I don't have any craft felt for it so I did it the old fashion way and layered the ink colors on the stamp itself starting with the lightest color. On the focal image I stamped the background in Scattered Straw with the sunbeams over it in Wild Honey and the sand, trees, and sentiment in Brushed Corduroy. All cardstoch was sponged with Old Paper and Brushed Corduroy. The kraft strip was also embossed with PTI's Linen impression plate. The sketch for this card comes from WMS's sketch challenge.

For the card on the right stamped the Grid Pattern with grey ink onto white c/s and then colored in the boxes to create the letter leaving room to punch out a heart. This really reminded me of when I did this with graph paper during math classes. I used another Hero Art's background stamp (the name escapes me) on the black oval to give it some texture. The sentiment comes from PTI's Framed Out #3 and was white embossed onto red c/s. To add the smaller strip I used score-it tape and even added enough to cover the entire heart space and then rubbed in fine glitter. I popped up the Grid Pattern/Love c/s just to give it depth. The sketch for the second card comes from Totally Gorjuss's sketch challenge. Love how I was able to achieve two looks with this one stamp.