Hello crafty friends! I have a set of cards for you today that feature a lovely soft Cherry blossom stamp from Paper Rose Studio, but no colouring.

I have been taking part in The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge, (you can see how I’ve been colouring my way around the colour wheel here) and so, for a change of style, I’ve chosen to feature ways of highlighting stamps without colouring.

I think the key to using a stamp as a feature like this is to choose a stamp that has a beautiful image. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as the saying goes.

For this first card, I have stamped the blossom over the background to fill the whole card. I then cut one blossom cluster, and cut it with the matching die. I also die cut some leaf sprigs from the leaf 1 and Ella’s Garden Scribble leaves dies. I cut these in vellum and rose gold glitter paper. I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment in Rose Gold embossing powder.

To construct the card, I layered a piece of rose gold paper, then the stamped background piece, which I wrapped in a piece of torn vellum at the bottom. I then layered the leaves, followed by the sentiment, and finally the feature image went on top, popped up with foam tape.

This second card does actually have a little colouring on it. I have coloured the spaces between the images with a black copic marker. Once again, I used rose gold for the layering and the sentiment embossing.

Finally, I used one of Paper Rose Studio’s mixed media stamps to create the stripe background. This is one of my absolute go-to background stamps, and I have used it over and over. I heap embossed in the same rose gold embossing powder, and then backed this with black card. The sentiment is stamped in black, and the image popped up on top, stretching off the panel to add interest.

I hope this has inspired you to look at the wonderful stamps that are out there, and consider options of highlighting the images without colouring them.

Until next time,

May you see the beauty all around you.

Blessings,

Donna