Something I hear people say quite often is that they struggle to colour stamped images. For this reason they avoid sets where the images have large open areas obviously designed for this purpose. From personal experience I know that this gets easier the more you practice but sometimes it’s good to get back to basics. So when I was working on my personal 24 cards in 24 hours challenge I came up with a simple design that’s easy to copy, using the In The Moment Stamp Set and Stampin’ Blends.

THOUGHTFUL MOMENT

I love all the images in the In The Moment Stamp Set. This one looking out of the window lends itself very well to a “thinking of you” card. I wanted to keep the whole colour scheme quite soft so I chose Very Vanilla Card for the main layer.

I actually began by cutting two pieces of Very Vanilla Card, one at 3-1/2″ x 4-3/4″ and one 4″ x 5-1/4″. Using Soft Suede ink I stamped the image in the bottom left corner of the smaller piece. Then without reinking the stamp I stamped in the bottom left corner of the other piece of card. This second image was much lighter and would be used on the inside of the card.

Before putting away the stamp I inked it up one last time and ‘stamped off’ onto some scrap paper. Then I stamped the lighter image on the front of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope.

For my sentiment I pulled out the Go To Greetings Stamp Set and the middle-sized “thinking of you”. Using Soft Suede ink once more I stamped it onto the smaller Very Vanilla layer in the space above the image.

I’ve already mentioned that I decided to use Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers for my colouring but even here I was keeping it very simple. So I took the dark Balmy Blue and coloured the trousers in the image on the main panel. Then I coloured the shirt with dark Petal Pink. No blending required, no working out where the light was coming from, just a simple single colour in each area. In fact that was all the colouring I did. The rest of that main image could stay uncoloured, along with the images on the larger card layer and envelope.

QUICK LAYERS

With all the stamping and colouring done I was ready to start putting the card together. This was also going to be really easy.

First I used my Paper Trimmer to cut a 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ piece of Soft Suede Card. Then with the long side at the top I scored the card at 4-1/4″. Once I’d folded the card along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder I had my standard A2 card base. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I fixed the larger Very Vanilla layer on the inside of the card leaving an even border all round.

Before adding the other layer to the front I wanted to mount it onto a card mat. So to coordinate with my colouring I cut a 3-5/8″ x 4-7/8″ piece of Petal Pink Card. Then I mounted the Very Vanilla piece on top using liquid glue, leaving an even border on all sides.

Finally with Stampin’ Dimensionals on the back of the assembled layers I attached it to the centre of my card front. In less than ten minutes my card was complete.

I have to say I love how this card turned out and it just goes to show you don’t need to spend a lot of time colouring to get a great result. What do you think?

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