Time to play

Sometimes I don't have pictures to work with or a card in mind and I just want to play.  Here are the fruits of my playtime labor.  :)

 

I found some SU! punches, a Maya road stamp set, CTMH ink and twine, and some scraps of paper.  Oh and I also had a couple of rolls of ribbon tape. 

 

 
 

 

First I punched a circle and flower, and proceeded to stamp that cute little camera from the Maya Road stamp set. 

 

Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the ink coverage I wanted so I kept trying.  I tried SU! ink, CTMH ink, Maya Road ink, and finally settled on that Brilliance ink pad.  See the difference below?  Check out the "Smile" stamp - you can actually read the SMILE in there with the Brilliance ink pad. 

 

 

After I got it stamped just how I wanted it, I decided I wanted dots in each scallop of the flower, but I'm not so good at drawing exactly even circles (and I am completely anal retentive about it being equal and even), so I thought to just dip my pencil tip (minus the lead) into the ink pad and use that.  If you're trying this tap lightly as you don't want to bust up the spongy material of the stamp pad.  Ask me how I know that!  ;-)

 

 

Pretty cool huh?  I did punch the scallop flower twice and put pop dots between them.  It adds a little extra oomph. 

 

 

Here are a couple of other fun tags I made with the punches.  The yellow/black combo is ready to be used as a journaling spot, and the other "happy happy" could be just an accent somewhere. 

 

 

 

Layer, layer, layer! :-)

 

 

 

Finally, I really wanted to use a CTMH stamp set along with punches for possibly a title.  I went with some orange hues and added twine. 

 

 

 

It's cute but kind of boring... so I had to spruce it up a bit.  I decided to punch some circles, two different sizes, two different colors, and then re-stamp the title. 

 

 

 

Looks much better, no?  Then I decided I wanted to mount the tags on some paper and I liked orange and then white in the back, but then I thought to put the orange in the back to frame it really well, and then the white needed some more texture.  Thank you Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots folder!

 

 

After that was done I decided I didn't want to just put this away, so I built a layout around it.  I guess I was in an orange mood!  I left space for one 6x4 photo and two 3x3 photos.  The ribbon and chipboard accents are CTMH, the journaling cards are Project Life, and the brads are Paper Studio. 

 

 

Here's another detail shot.  LOVE it!  And the pictures I want for this are of my mom's beautiful green lawn so that is definitely going to offset all the orange.

 

 

I've done this on several occasions, where I just want to work with stamps and/or paper but don't have matching pictures.  Usually when I get a set of pictures printed I browse through my file of pre-made pages and see if anything fits. 

 

Here is a set of SU! papers from a few years back, along with one of their stamp sets.  Once I find a suitable 5x7 for this LO I'll finish it up by adding accents and embellishments.  Part of having a huge stash is being able to half-make layouts and filling in the holes later.  :-)

 

 

 

The papers in this LO were the leftover scraps from another LO, and I had just gotten a new sewing machine and wanted to practice.  Again, when I find suitable photos I'll add accents and texture wherever and however possible.  

 

 

 

This is one I made a couple of months ago or maybe last month sometime.  I really wanted to play with this CTMH stamp set and, oh look, I was in an orange mood that day, too.  LOL!!! On this one I left space for a 6x4 photo and under the "Uniquely You" title block I decided to use a background stamp on that piece of paper, which will be for journaling and/or a smaller picture.   

 

 

Here's a close-up of that LO.   I love how this one turned out.  Can't wait to add pix and put it into an album!

 

 

OK, now this next layout I made about a year ago and it was an exact replica of a layout pictured on the box that my Cricut Imagine came in.  Yep, I copied the exact layout down to the colors and patterned papers, which I printed out with the Imagine.  Pretty fun!  Too bad I haven't found pictures for it!

 

 

Detail shot of that pretty butterfly. 

 

 

And one more.  Hmmm... orange again.  I'm noticing a trend here.... O.o  This is another one that will need texture with ribbon or something when I get pictures and a title, because right now it's completely flat with just paper and stickers.  I need more lumpy and bumpy than that before it can be put into an album! 

 

 

All right, that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by.  I hope I might have inspired you with some designs, colors (helllllooooo, orange!!! LOL), or to try some backward scrapping.  I certainly enjoy it every now and then!