Whew! I spent several hours yesterday playing with the Stampin’ Blends. The perfectionist in me was not happy. I didn’t like the way the pens were blending over (and beyond) the black lines. My solution was to think borders. You know, how the Big Shot dies leave a white border around them, rather than cutting on the lines.

Here’s my project, and I’ll continue to explain.

I was determined to make a one layer card; meaning no layers, no die cutting, no embellishments, just stamps, ink and Stampin’ Blends. 

I began with a Thick Whisper White card base, and with less room for error, this was scary. My trash was full of discarded samples, but I persevered.

I stamped three flowers from the new stamp set, Color Me Happy, in Rich Razzleberry. I used the brush side of the Light Rich Razzleberry Stampin’ Blend to color the middle of the petals. So far, so good, no color was outside the outside lines. With reading glasses, I added the pen side of Dark Pink Pirouette to fill in most of the white spaces. I colored right over the center of the flower (feeling daring), and then added a few dots of Dark Rich Razzleberry to the center.

I found the leaves and tiny blossoms in the Daisy Delight stamp set, and scattered them among the flowers. I used Old Olive ink for the outline of the leaves, and filled them in using the solid leaf stamp and Pear Pizazz ink.

The sentiment, “Life looks beautiful on you” is from the Beautiful You stamp set, and I used Old Olive ink, so it would blend in with the leaves.

I was really happy to complete this project without a stray smudge somewhere. I hope this technique was helpful for you like-minded perfectionists.

Although, I might just get crazy, and go outside the lines one of these days. I love other people’s art that is done in a more carefree manner. I’m learning, and that’s what makes all of this stamping so much fun!

If you missed my first card with the Color Me Happy stamp set and Stampin’ Blends, you can see it here. I was excited to find out yesterday that it was chosen as a winner at the Paper Players challenge.

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope this will color “you” happy too!