In The Pines In Shaded Spruce

Monday’s Are Hard, Stamping Shouldn’t Be

Card made with In The Pines Stamp Set

Monday’s are hard, but in this card making 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!

To see my wonderful Monday card from last week, click here.

In The Pines Stamp Set

Today’s Monday Card features the stamp set In The Pines. This is a brand new upcoming release from the August-December 2020 Mini Catalog from Stampin’ Up!. I have a feeling it will be a carry-over item into the next annual catalog, it is so versatile!

Starting on August 4, 2020, you can purchase In the Pines as a bundle with the Pine Wood Dies and save 10%. However, since we are using minimal supplies, this Monday Card only uses the stamp set.

In The Pines Stamp Set
In The Pines Stamp Set, item #153448

That’s right, one stamp set, In The Pines, two ink pads, Shaded Spruce and Memento Tuxedo Black, and two colors of cardstock, Shaded Spruce and Whisper White. Please follow along!

A Monday Card

The Card Recipe

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

Shaded Spruce CS: 2-1/2 x 3-1/2″ and 1-1/2x 4″

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

Whisper White CS: 2-1/4 x 3-1/4″, 1-1/4 x 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 bone folder 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!

Shaded Spruce CS and bone folder

Create A Crease

Usually this is where we begin stamping to create our background paper. This easy to make card has different features, including a corner crease that gets a little stamped action.

To start, I simply folded a small section of the top right corner of my 4 x 5-1/4″ Whisper White CS toward the middle. I used my bone folder to burnish the crease and help the fold to stay bent over.

I then un-bent my cardstock and flipped it over so the back was facing up. Next, I used the snowflake (or dots) stamp from the In The Pines Stamp Set and inked it in Shaded Spruce. I stamped this image over the bent corner portion of my paper.

Stamping snow dots with the In The Pines Stamp Set

By stamping the corner from the back side of the paper, the front of the corner has great images when flipped around into position. I also avoided getting ink on the front where I didn’t want ink to be.

Front of bent crease stamped with snow dot stamp from In The Pines Stamp Set

Sentiment Of Anytime Of The Year

The In The Pines Stamp Set has exactly two sentiment choices: Thinking of You or Season’s Greeetings. They are both the same petite size, and the same fantastic font. This makes the In The Pines Stamp Set perfect for pine tree themed cards year round.

I chose the Holiday version for my card here, but in my video tutorial, I swapped out the seasonal greeting for the Thinking of You sentiment. In both cases, I used Memento Black Ink for the saying, and placed it in the bottom right corner of my Whisper White CS.

Stamping the sentiment from In The Pines Stamp Set

Oh Christmas (Or Pine) Tree

To finish the stamping for the outside of my easy Monday card, I next turned to the theme of the In The Pines Stamp Set, the pines!

I began with the largest pine tree outline from the In The Pines Stamp Set, and inked it in Memento Black Ink onto the 2-1/4 x 3-1/4″ Whisper White CS. Next, I inked the tree trunk in the same black ink and used it to fill in the open space left by the outline stamp.

To make my tree green with envy…or beauty…I inked the like size shading stamp and filled in my tree outline quickly. The In The Pines Stamp Set provides perfect two-step stamping in this way.

Large pine tree stamp from In The Pines Stamp Set
The Shaded Spruce Ink looks really dark when it is first stamped, but the color will lighten slightly as it dries.

After that, I stamped a row of trees on my 1-1/4 x 4″ piece of Whisper White CS, using only the filler tree grouping stamp from the In The Pines Stamp Set. I stamped in Shaded Spruce, then immediately stamped off to create lighter trees. This process was done twice along the length of the paper.

For additional color, I cleaned the Shaded Spruce Ink off my stamp and repeated the same process with the filler tree grouping stamp, this time around I used Memento Black Ink. This Dist-Ink-Tive style stamp set creates instant depth with highs and lows in color saturation.

Stamping a row of pine trees using the In The Pines Stamp Set

Easy Assembly

The large piece of Whisper White CS with the creased corner and sentiment is the first layer onto my card base. Before adding on the pine stamped images, I gave each one a gorgeous mat in Shaded Spruce CS. I like to adhere these go-together pieces before putting them in their place on my card.

I began with the row of pine trees, adhering it slightly above my sentiment. This one must go down first, so the focal pine can be layered over top of it.

Layering card front part 1

When I added the focal pine tree to the front of my card, the bottom overlaps the row of pines and the top right edge holds down the folded crease. This leaves a little gap in the upper left corner. I added 2 small scraps of Shaded Spruce CS on the back of my large pine tree assembly to give proper height and a cohesive seating.

Layering card front part 2
When layering multi pieces that overlap, there can be gaps due to different thickness of papers. I like to add small scraps of cardstock to the back of pieces that need a little “lift”.

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 row of pine trees to add that inside interest. In this case I only used Shaded Spruce Ink and skipped the Memento Black Ink.

Stamping inside of card using the In The Pines Stamp Set

Step It Up!

Adding more can be fun! For my stepped-up version of my card, I used additional new products from the up-coming August-December 2020 Mini Catalog. The Pine Woods Dies (item #153563) provided me with Shaded Spruce die cut trees that peek out from the creased corner.

The Evergreen Forest 3D Embossing Folder (item #153576) gave great texture to my Whisper White CS front. And for embellishments, I chose the Wonder Of The Season Ribbon Combo Pack (item #153537) and some Gold Metallic Pearls (item #146282).

The little swoosh of snow under my large pine tree came from a die cut too. I ran the brush end tip of my Light Pool Party Stampin’ Blend along the edge for shading and contrast.

I hope you enjoyed making this easy card on a hard Monday with me, where I showcased some great new products coming your way soon! My video tutorial can be found on my FaceBook page, as well as my YouTube channel.

If you need any supplies to make fabulous cards like these, 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!