Soft Sky Background & Stretching Your Stamps

Hi everyone! In case you don't know, Create A Smile has released a new stamp set! Do stop over the store to check it out. I don't have it yet but they are super awesome! 

Sometimes, when we are all excited about the newest collection, we might forget about the older ones. Today, I would like to feature an older stamp set but still as great. 

Stretching my stamp set is one of my favourite things to do. I love it when you can "alter" the look of the stamps to get more use out of it. 

I love making my own custom background paper. I've shown in my past posts on making your own background paper with stamps. Today, I want to show you how you can achieve your own background paper with ink & some masking paper. 

First, I used my favourite masking paper from Inkadikido and die cut a few clouds. I used two different shapes from Impression Obsessions.

I wanted my card to be a different size today. I made it into a 4 1/4 inch square card. My top panel is smaller, 4 inch square. I stuck the clouds on the paper as I would like it and used the Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and sponge it on the paper, very lightly to achieve a soft sky.

This is how it looked when I removed the masking paper.

I stamped the umbrellas on a piece of watercolour paper and used some Distress Inks to colour them.

As usual, I painted the ink without water to the darker parts of the image. I, then, wet my paintbrush with water and drag the ink to cover the image to achieve a lighter shade.

I heat embossed the sentiment on a black cardstock and scored it on both sides like the image below.

This allows me to fold the sentiment piece like the image below to make a more dimensional banner.

I've cut out the umbrella without the holder, so that I could have the end of the handle below the sentiment. You can see the final look of the card that the handle of the umbrella stretches till it passes the sentiment. This is one way to change the look of your stamp.

I took my favourite stickles and added them to the darker shade of the umbrella for some texture and shine :) 

Hope you'll look at your stamps and find ways to stretch it :) 

Sponge in your inks very lightly to achieve a lighter shade and you can press it harder to get the full colour. This is also a way to get more out of your inks. Take your time to experiment with your stamps, dies and even inks, to get more out of just one way to use it!

Follow Create A Smile on Facebook keep yourself updates on all the happenings and if you're an Instagram addict like I am, you can follow Create A Smile using this name : @createasmilestamps ! :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Marina