May Peace Be Your Gift

Hi there all you lovely peeps!  Lynda Pleckan here, aka 'Joyful Stamper.'    I am delighted to be a new member of the Technique Junkies design team!   I look forward to sharing ideas and projects here in the TJ blog with you.

Just a little bit about me...I have been playing with stamps for 30 some years, and owned a rubber stamp store called The Stamp Pad for 13 years, before I closed the doors to be able to spend more time with my family.   I am retired from my church secretary job, which I loved.  Now, when I'm not doing things with my family, I'm usually blogging, writing, and creating art in my little 'studio.'  I am on the Dirty Dozen design team for Splitcoaststampers, also.  My stamping style varies, according to my mood.  I like experimenting with many different techniques, and find myself using watercolor and/or colored pencils mostly.

I blog at PaperArtsCafe.  Would love to have you visit.  I will have more cards using the amazing TJ stamps on my blog.  

Now, on to my first post. 

I started by stamping  Olive Branch onto a panel of watercolor paper.  I inked up the stamp and stamped off on scrap paper a couple of times in order to get a faint background.  Oh, it's there, see, on the background there.....

It shows up a little more in real life.

I inked up the stamp again, and stamped it onto a piece of natural card stock, full strength (bottom tag piece).  I used Tim Holtz distress inks for both the front panel and this piece.  I used a tag die to cut out the larger tag and my paper trimmer to cut the inside panel from this second piece.  

For the strip down the left side of the card front and inside, I used the 'smoosh technique' on a piece of watercolor scrap, using TH distress inks also.  I rubbed distress inks in greens and purples onto my craft mat, spritzed them generously, and dipped my watercolor paper into it, smooshing it around and colorizing the paper.  I love backgrounds created with this technique, and it's so fun to do!  I even have some left over to use on another card.....

The verse is from the Gifts of Christmas set .  I liked the ideas of the peace verse with the olive branch.  I stamped part of the verse on the outside, and part inside, using TH distress inks.

For the smaller image tag, I inked up only one of the branches on this large background stamp, using Tombow markers.  I stamped it onto a small piece of watercolor paper, then used the markers rubbed onto a palette as watercolor to paint the branch and add some smudging around the image.  I used a smaller tag die to cut it out, and mounted it onto a piece of eggplant textured paper.  I punched a hole into both tags with my Cropodile, and tied a bit of purple ribbon to it.

I layered my pieces onto an eggplant cardstock panel, then onto an A2 card base.  I finished the inside, and that was that.

Here's the inside of the card:

This is the Olive Branch stamp background I used....

And the Gifts of Christmas stamp set I used for the verse....

 

Be sure to check out the line of fabulous holiday stamps, and more, at the Technique Junkies website. And if you'd like to take 10% off your purchase, just use this code on your order...

Joy and peace to you on this beautiful day!

Lynda