SYOPP--Stamp Your Own Patterned Paper

 My Stampin' Up! demo friend, Jennifer Merle-Hamscher hosts Mystery Stamping every month.  Last week, she walked us through stamping our own patterned paper and 2 cards using the paper we stamped.

If you'd like to join us next month, she can be found at Whispers in Ink.  Mystery Stamping is the second Friday of the  month in her Mystery Card Night and Games group. This is what I created--6 cards!  I even remembered to stamp the inner layer and my envelopes.

I sent my sister a photo of what I was working on, so I just pulled this photo from Facebook.  I forgot to take a better photo before I cut it up.

I used Starry Sky, Bermuda Bay and Flirty Flamingo ink with the Artistically Inked and Botanical Layers stamp sets.  I did add a few more flowers on the small pieces before adding them to the cards.  Do what works for your projects!

A few tips on SYOPP:
-use at least 3 colors, or 3 variations of a color (by stamping off)

-overlap your stamped images.  You can still leave white spaces around them, but then stamp in clusters.  Play around with shapes for your stamping--inside only leaving the edges white, stamp in a cross shape or an X, stamp in a circle.  So many options.

-You can use vellum grids to see what the sections will look like when cut apart.  I didn't use my grids here, because I didn't know what Jen was having us create with the stamped paper

--stamp off the edge of the paper

-I like to stamp my inside layers and envelopes at the same time.

Jen walked us through creating these first 2 cards--a diagonal easel card and a bridge card.  Our color coordination makes these cards pretty easy to make.

For the focal point of this card, I wound the Starry Sky baker's twine around a piece that was punched with the new Decorative Circle punch. 

For the sentiment here, I used the double punch technique on the Basic White piece.

You can't see it in this photo, but I adhered the inner layer on the wrong side of the card, so both the left and right sides have a stamped white piece of cardstock.  I'll bring this to my Bible study to have all the ladies write a note for a fellow parishioner struggling with cancer.

Can you see that I embossed the Starry Sky cardstock with the stripes embossing folder from the pair, Stripes & Splatters 3D folders?  They can be found on page 177 in the annual catalog.

There are my favorite kinds of projects--I just use whatever I feel like using.  You'll notice that my last card has a retired die shape on it.  If you even need help finding a current Stampin' Up! product to use in place of a retired product, I'd be happy to help you.