Monday’s Are Hard, Stamping Shouldn’t Be

Monday’s are hard, but in this cardmaking series, I will show you that stamping shouldn’t be. In fact, it’s quite easy. And with minimal supplies and minimal efforts, you can get fabulous results!

Painted Poppies Stamp Set

Today’s Monday Card features the Painted Poppies Stamp Set. This is a popular stamp set that was carried over from the January-June 2020 Mini Catalog from Stampin’ Up!. If you would like to see another floral Monday card, click here.

You can purchase the Painted Poppies Stamp Set as a bundle with the Painted Labels Dies and save 10%. However, since we are using minimal supplies, this Monday Card only uses the stamp set.

That’s right, one stamp set, Painted Poppies, two ink pads, Poppy Parade and Memento Tuxedo Black, and two colors of cardstock, Poppy Parade and Whisper White. Please follow along!

A Monday Card

The Card Recipe

Poppy Parade CS: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2″, score at 4 1/4″ for card base.

Poppy Parade CS: 3-1/8 x 5-1/8″, 1-7/8 x 5″, (3 of) 3 x 1-1/2″

Whisper White CS: 4 x 5 1/4″ x 2 (one for inside, optional)

Whisper White CS: 3 x 5″, 1-3/4 x 5″, (3 of) 3 x 1-1/4″

Stamp And Assemble

This Monday’s Are Hard, Stamping Shouldn’t Be Card starts out with the typical “fold in half” and score with your bonefolder to get a great crisp card base. Let’s not break tradition.

However, my TIP to you is to score once, invert the fold and score again. Your inner crease is now as crisp as the outer one. This makes for a professional looking card base!

Create Your Own Designer Series Paper

With the minimal supplies used in this card, we are not adding designer series paper to it. We are making our own!

I began by stamping the image of mulitple poppies on their long stems, from the Painted Poppies Stamp Set. I used Memento Black Ink and the 3 x 5″ piece of Whisper White CS.

First, I turned the cardstock in the landscape position, and stamped the image twice, going across and keeping the taller poppies close to the paper’s edge. Next, I rotated the paper and did the same stamping on the opposite side. It is okay to overlap the ink coverage in the middle.

Floral Details

The next bit of stamping creates the tiny details. I used 3 pieces of Whisper White CS, 1-1/4″ square. Using the large open poppy stamp from the Painted Poppies Stamp Set and Memento Black Ink, I stamped 2 of the 3 squares. I tried to get different coverage on each, and since the stamp is so much bigger than the paper, there is a lot of overflow!

For the third square, I stamped in Memento Black Ink using the smaller of the open poppy stamps from the Painted Poppies Stamp Set. This image fits better into the small space of the square, overflowing slightly.

Colorful Poppy Stamping

Our poppies need some color, and I used the Poppy Parade ink to fill them in. Using the solid shading stamp from the Painted Poppies Stamp Set, I stamped off once before stamping on to each of the three squares. This gives the ink coverage a lighter tone.

To add additional color to my poppies and really make them “pop” I used the smaller splotchy stamp from the Painted Poppies Stamp Set and full strength Poppy Parade Ink. I stamped this image 3 times around the black center of each poppy. If you need to stamp 4 times to get complete coverage, that works fine as well.

Layering Layers

This great card has a lot of layers! And they go together very easily. First, I adhered one of the 4 x 5-1/4″ Whisper White CS panels to the front of the card base. I also layered the stamped poppies in black to the Poppy Parade CS mat, sized 3-1/8 x 5-1/8″.

The matted poppies are ready for the card front, and I began to layer my next pieces together. This time, the plain Poppy Parade, 1-7/8 x 5″, and the plain Whisper White, 1-3/4 x 5″, went together. Notice that the height of both of these pieces is the same, so the matting is actually only along the sides here.

Once the plain layers are added to the middle of the stamped poppies, the flower images look nice on either side and the messy middle is no longer visible. And the plain layer now looks like it has its own matted border along the top, due to paper sizing!

Each of the small white squares with a poppy gets its own Poppy Parade mat, size 1-1/2″ square as well. And this completes our layering process.

Squares Like Diamonds

The hardest part of making this easy card is lining up the poppy squares in a diamond pattern. I started with a dry fitting and moved the pieces around to get the right placement.

I chose to put the 2 similar poppy images on top and bottom, leaving the smaller stamped poppy in the middle. It is helpful to take advantage of the Poppy Parade CS mat edge when lining up the squares. I made sure the corner of each square did not go past the “red line”.

From there, it was just a matter of spacing in between each square. I adhered each one without moving the others off the card front, so I remembered where each one needed to be fit back on the card.

The Insider Job

Your card is beautiful on the outside, now lets make it pretty inside too! I like to mimic some of the outer stamping into a corner of the inside card. This way the card has continuity and there is still lots of room to add your own sentiment or written thoughts.

Here, I used the same technique from the stamping of the large poppy image and filler color from the Painted Poppy Stamp Set to add that inside interest.

Step It Up!

Sometimes more is more. If you have ribbon or adhesive gems in your craft room, they go so nicely with this card. Here, I used some retired Poppy Parade ribbon and the Frosted Epoxy Droplets (item #147801) to dress it up.

I hope you enjoyed making this easy card on a hard Monday with me. My video tutorial can be found on my FaceBook page, as well as my YouTube channel. If you need any supplies for this card, please feel free to visit my online store, https://www.juliemakson.stampinup.net, at any time. See you next Monday for another installment of:

Monday’s Are Hard, Stamping Shouldn’t Be!