If you thought Monday was the end of my monstera card love fest, you were fooled – it’s time for more!
For a while now, I’ve been wanting to try adding a little more interest to my solid stamped images by using more than one color of ink. I’ll preface this by saying I’m absolutely NOT a pro at this technique, but for a first try, I was quite happy with how these turned out.
To begin, I grabbed The Stamp Market Tropical Vibes stamp and die set. This duo doesn’t appear to be available any more, but it’s been in my stash for a very long time and I always find myself reaching for it when I’m craving summer vibes. I love the monstera and palm leaves in this set, but wanted to pair them with some smaller flowers. The Pigment Craft Co Spring Floral stamp set was perfect, so I chose a couple of flowers from there and started stamping. (For more of the Spring Floral set in action, check out these cards and these ones too!)
Beginning with the leaves, I used Tropic Teal ink from The Stamp Market to stamp the solid images, then grabbed a small ink blending tool and my Island ink pad. Lightly pressing that tool into my ink, I began to lightly press it around the outer edges of my leaf stamps. (All of this is happening in my stamping platform, by the way – it makes ensuring that the alignment of the second stamping is exactly over the first impression.) Once I was happy with how the leaves looked, I moved onto the flowers. I stamped the solid images in Marigold ink from Pinkfresh Studio, then followed up with Fuschia ink from The Stamp Market, using the same technique I described above with my small ink blending tool.
While my inks were out, I created subtle palm leaf backgrounds on two trimmed white card panels with Mint ink from Pinkfresh Studio. For the sentiments, I kept things really simple since there was already going to be a lot going on with the stamped flowers and leaves. The ‘best ever’ sentiment comes from the Cherry Blossom stamp set, and the ‘a happy note’ is from an older celebration set that doesn’t appear to be available any more. I rarely stamp sentiments in black, but it seemed like all that was needed here!
I cut the leaves and flowers out with the coordinating dies, then began to arrange them on the palm backgrounds. Looking back, the ink on my die cuts hadn’t fully dried at this point, and had I waited for this to happen, I think I would have gone back in on the leaves with my blending tool to make the transition from the outer to inner areas more gradual. That said, it actually does look more gradual in real life than it does in these photos.
Once my die cuts were arranged the way I wanted them, I adhered them to the palm leaf panels, using some foam adhesive to pop a few of the pieces forward. To finish the cards, I added a few bits of confetti to the flower centers.
Alright, I’d love to hear about your adventures with two-tone stamping! Have you tried it yet? Do you have any tips or tricks to share? I’m really looking forward to giving this a shot again with other solid stamps that I haven’t used in a while!