I recently purchased two stamp sets from Altenew and I am so in love with them. These both stamp sets have images of Peonies and these images are so versatile. I will be sharing several different cards made with these stamp sets in the next few days. Most of the techniques we will use them with, can be done with any other floral / layered images. So you can keep practicing along with whatever stamp sets you have available.
Today is the first post using these stamps and it uses the masking technique. But before starting with the technique, let’s take a look at the stamp sets:
Both these sets have multiple stamps for each flower / leaf. One is an outline, second one is a stamp that covers the entire area inside that outline, and there are one or two more more stamps that add highlights to the base image.
You can use these in several different ways. You can decide to use only one layer or only two or all four. You don’t have to use all the layers all the time. For today’s card I used the large flower from the first (A Beautiful Day) stamp set and I skipped the layer that covers entire image with color. I only used the outline and two shaded layers.
I also combined my flowers with leaves from the second (Peony Bouquet) stamp set. For the leaves, I used only outline / one layer stamps.
One other thing I likes about these stamp sets is that all the layers are easy to line up. I used my MISTI tool to do my stamping. But even with normal acrylic blocks or a stamp press, these stamps will be easy to line up. I don’t own any large sized acrylic block or a stamp press that’s large enough for these big flowers and I am so comfortable with MISTI that it has become my goto tool for stamping. So I just went with it. But again, you don’t have to have a MISTI. You can use what works for you.
The card today uses the masking technique. There are two ways you can do masking. One way is to mask parts of the stamp, ink the stamp, remove the mask (so that it reveals some uninked parts) and then stamp the image. I made a card using this technique and made a Christmas stamp work for a Valentine card. Check it out here.
The second way is to mask images in front so that you can make some images appear behind those. This is what we are going to do today. Here are the steps to achieve this front and back look:
Always stamp the front most image first.
Create a mask that will cover this image. You could use masking paper, postIt notes or printer papers. I used a postIt note for my card. I found the full adhesive postIt notes to be a good cheap alternative to masking paper. To create a mask you can simply stamp the same image onto the masking material and cut it out. Altenew recently released dies for this stamp set, and if you have those, you can certainly use them. Personally I don’t like to use dies to cut out my masks, because dies typically leave a little white border around the image. So, I always prefer fussy cutting my masks. That’s what I did today. Another option for masking is to use a masking fluid. I did not use that today though.
Temporarily adhere the mask on top of the front most stamped image.
Stamp the images that need to be behind the front image. Typically the behind image will be stamped overlapping the front image. But the overlapping part will get stamped on the mask. When the mask is removed, you will see the full front image and those parts of the back image which were not overlapped.
Check out this little video I made to show you how this is done.
Masking Technique
Once I had the main flowers done, I simply stamped my leaves around them using mask to cover my flowers as I went. I also added a washi tape on one side, embellished with clear sequins and added two sentiment stickers. I finished it off by mounting on my card base with foam tape.
Hope you enjoyed this card and are inspired to try something like this. Let me know how it goes.
Supplies list
For your convenience, I am sharing links to the supplies I’ve used for these cards – click on the picture or link to go directly to the product. Wherever available, I have used affiliate links, which means when you make a purchase, I receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) which I use to run this blog. I truly appreciate your support!
Stay tuned for more cards using these stamp sets!
Talk to you soon,
~Varada
