Stamping Challenge

 Well, today's challenge was to use stamping to meet other challenges on the message board I frequent.  Just a stamped sentiment met the challenge, but kudos for stamping background and focal as well.

Here's a picture of the two cards I made for this challenge:

I'll show a closer look at each and describe what I did.

Card #1:

This card started with a digital paper that I printed.  I matted it on brown paper before adding it to my card front.

 

For my stamped element, I tried to create a wreath.  I used a gadget I've had for a long time called Stamping Gears.  I think this experiment has made me decide to get rid of it!  I was very frustrated at the poor quality of stamping that I got.  Of course, now that I've had some time to get past the frustration, I realize that it's probably not the stamping gears fault since I used Distress Inks.  I use them for stamping all the time, but usually on my stamping platform where I can stamp them a second time to sharpen up the image.  I'll have to use some other inks to see how well it works before for sure getting rid of it!  Anyway, I ended up using markers to color in all the stamped lines.  It took forever!  Then I added some color to the flowers with my scroll and brush markers.  I used Kat Scrappiness dies called Double Stitched Circles to cut a circle around the stamped image - and then a 2nd circle to make a frame.  I colored the frame with Vintage Photo Distress ink.

 

The center of this stamped image was pretty messy with lots of overlapping stems, so I stamped another flower (stamp from Serendipity Flowers set from HOTP) and colored it in before adding with foam tape.  I die cut a sentiment using Spellbinders dies from a set called Happy Fall.

 

Card #2:

 

I really DO like the way this one turned out, but if the last one took forever, this one took at least double that. :)  All stamps, including the sentiment, came from a set I got in a card making magazine.  The set was called Tropical Treetops and was made by Stampendous.  

 

I stamped the background, taking care to mask off previous leaves and overlapping the next stamps to make quite an interesting background (time consuming!).  I used two different colors of ink for this.  

 

Next I colored in the leaves using Inktense pencils & a water brush (time consuming!).  I stamped the tree & sloth - again using different colors of inks - and then using Inktense pencils.  Then I fussy cut them out and glued them together (all time consuming!).  I added a ribbon across my panel and glued it to the card front before adding my tree & sloth with foam tape.  Next, I created two more leaves the same way and fussy cut them out (time consuming!).  I used these top and bottom of the stamped "tree" to hide the cut-off trunk.  

 

Finally I added a sentiment stamped on a white rectangular piece that I glued in place.  

Since the card blank was kraft colored, I added a white panel on the inside to hold my message.  I may stamp some on the inside as well, but I haven't decided that yet.

So, there are my two cards - took me most of the day!