Simon Says Anything Goes

by Marika Rahtu for Altenew

Hello everyone!  I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday.  As 2016 comes to a close, I'm spending a bit of time revisiting some older techniques. The one I'm using to play along on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge this week is from an Altenew Academy Class.

If you've been coming to my blog for a while, you know that I am a huge fan of Marika Rahtu's!  There's a link to her blog in my sidebar if you don't want to follow the link just now. I really miss seeing her around but she is very busy these days since she's returned to work after a few years off to be a stay-at-home-mom to her girls.

This past June, I took an online class at Altenew Academy called "Beautiful Details" which was taught by Marika. I loved the class but at the time I took it, I didn't really have a suitable stamp for "Lesson One: Artistic Flowers", so I am just now going back to it. One of the benefits of taking online classes is that you can go back and revisit any lesson at any time.

Marika has a way of looking at stamps and seeing something entirely different than what most people do, so I tried to look at my stamps in that same way to see what I had that could be used for this technique. This is Marika's gorgeous card made with a single stamp from the Painted Roses Stamp Set.  I don't have this set, so I looked around at all my stamp sets to see what I had that was similar in size and shape. Marika (and I) created all the different colors by coloring onto our stamp and using 2-3 generations of stamping to create the various levels of color. I only have a couple of colors of Tombow Markers (1 black and 1 brown) so I used two different inks for my second card; Lilac Grace and Winter Wisteria.  The first card base is made from Pale Peony Cardstock and the 2nd from Lilac Grace Cardstock.  I'm still wanting to try this method with Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens, Altenew Inks, and Distress Markers as well but I'll have to do that another day.

For my artistic (impressionistic) flowers, I used a couple of the leaf stamps from WPLUS9's Pretty Peonies Stamp Set.  I think you could also use leaves or layers from other stamp sets such as Altenew Painted Flowers or Altenew Watercolor Wonders, but I found that I like the elongated leaves of the set I used for this. I had to stamp several more times than Marika did, but I'm okay with that. I also don't have a Copic Multi Liner like Marika used, so I just used the fine point ends from other markers. On the first card, I used Nuvo Crystal Drops in Glossy Black and for the 2nd card I used three different colors of purple sequins.



My third card once again uses the Black Tombow Marker and the Glossy Black Nuvo Crystal Drops.  If you don't have a black Tombow Marker, you could use black ink or a coupe of shades of black and grey inks. I had a lot of fun playing with this technique and I have a few other colors and stamps I'd like to try it with as well. Each of these front panels has been cut with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles Die before mounting on to a card base.  By inking the sentiment multiple times (using a MISTI) with the ink color I wanted to use and then pouring clear embossing powder over the top, I was able to heat emboss to get a bolder look for my greeting.

I hope I've inspired you to look through your stamp sets and see what shapes you have that can create the look of a flower or branch.  If you don't have markers, just stamp in a variety of color using ink pads.  Also, you can check out Marika's class called "Beautiful Details" at Altenew Academy.  At $8.95 for the class, I think it is a whole lot of bang for your buck!

Thank you so much for stopping by today to spend a bit of time with me.  I love reading your kind and encouraging comments, so don't hesitate if you'd like to leave one.