Card Sketches featuring Creative Expression's "Joy" Stamp Set

For this card sketch, I used the “Joy” stamp set from Creative Expressions. Last year, I purchased quite a few Christmas stamps from Creative Expressions, but… I didn’t end up using them. This year I’m making it a goal to use them all! So far I’ve accomplished using two sets, and this post will feature one of those stamp sets.

I actually began these card sketches by looking up the stamp set on the website and seeing the examples of how it was used by the manufacture. The examples mostly featured watercoloring and matching patterned paper, so I decided to give that a try. Yet, another technique I haven’t done in a while and an excuse to use it.

For my first card, I used Tim Holtz distress inks. I smooshed them onto my Tim Holtz media mat and added water to each color. I then took each color individually and spread it onto the stamped panel. I focused on tan, purple and blue colors for this card. The watercoloring ended up muting the colors more than I wanted, so I got more of a magenta and lighter blue. This didn’t match the patterned paper I had selected, so I chose a neutral color paper in the paper pad to use with the card. Since “Joy to the World” was its own sentiment, I didn’t need to add another one. I used some black paper to bring out the black in the stamping. I also used some iridescent stars that I had to add a little extra to the card, as well as some twine to finish it off.

After creating this card, I wanted to try again at the colors I really wanted and how I wanted them to match the patterned paper. This time, I chose a green color rather than blue, and I decided to use an ink smooshing technique rather than the watercolor. Sorta the same but not as planned. I pressed the inks onto my media mat randomly and then sprayed the area with water. I took the stamped panel and pressed it on top of the inks, then picked up the panel and dried it, removed the ink from the media mat, and repeated the same steps. This resulting in a very random coloring on the panel, but each color kept it’s tone for the most part and the colors didn’t mix together much. I really loved how this panel came out, especially how the green kept its color. The panel ended up more matching the cardstock like I had originally planned.

I repeated the same steps to finish off the second card and even found some minty green twine to match. THIS is how I wanted my card to look, but I think both look nice - however, the second is my favorite :) And again, my sketches pulled through to help me design two amazing cards and create more Christmas cards using a new to me stamp set!

Thanks for stopping by! Happy crafting :)