Technique Tuesday Friendly February

Hey everyone!

I'm here today helping Technique Tuesday celebrate Friendly February.  From now through February 20th, you can get 25% off all items in the Friendship & Inspiration category in the Technique Tuesday store using code TTFriend.  AND, as a bonus, any orders over $25 ship free in the U.S.

I'm sharing a couple cards created using the A Little Prickly Stamp Set and Dies.

These are basically the same card/layout, but created using very different techniques.

For my first card, I wanted to go back to a technique that I used to do a lot, and haven't in a while - paper piecing.

I placed my stamps in my MISTI, and then stamped a whole bunch of times using a bunch of different patterned papers - mostly greens for the cacti, but also that yellow for the base, and some other colors for the planters/flower.  This is a perfect technique for using up your patterned paper scraps.

Once the stamping was done, I fussy cut the different elements.  The emphasis was on the fussy as some of the pieces were very thin, but I think it's well worth the effort.

Once the pieces were cut, I went around the edges with a black foam tipped marker so that I couldn't seen any of the white core of the patterned paper.  This is definitely not required, but I think it gives the images a more polished/finished look.

Then it was a matter or adhering the pieces to my base patterned piece.  I used a Quickie Glue Pen for this step.

Originally I was going to just adhere that second piece of background paper for the ground line directly under the pots, but then I realized that because there was a bit of a curve to the bottom of the pots, it would look funny.  Instead, I trimmed that piece down so that it fell slightly above the bottom of the pot, stamped it with my MISTI (the cactic were all still in place), fussy cut the bottoms of the pots, and then adhered it to my background piece.

The sentiment was stamped directly onto that bottom piece, and I colored in the larger letters with a Copic marker.

For my second, card, I stamped a white panel of Neenah cardstock with my images (remember, they were all still in my MISTI).

Then I used the coordinating dies to partially die cut them, so just the bottoms were still attached, and used my paper trimmer to cut off the excess part of the panel.

I stamped the sentiment, and then the images and large letters were colored with Copics.

I normally don't use super bright/loud prints, but I thought that this print from an old BasicGrey collection was perfect for the images since the white in the panel provides a place for your eye to rest.

That's all for me today.  Would love to know which version of these is your favorite.

Be sure to stop by the Technique Tuesday blog to check out what the other designers created as well as peruse the Friendship & Inspiration section to see what's on sale.