SSS, Grad Basics

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

The new Grad Basics sentiment set came out just in time for me!  I normally have a few graduation cards to make each year, but this year my oldest graduates which means so do most of her friends, which means I need a lot more cards!

When I need cards in a hurry, stencils are my best friend.  I pulled out a few favorites to create fun, colorful backgrounds, and finished things off with a sentiment from the Grad Basics set.

For these first two cards, I tilted the Positivity stencil when putting it over my cardstock panel, and then inked with two colors: Pucker and Citrine for the card on the left, and Cabbage and Sky for the card on the right.  All my sentiments were stamped with Versafine Clair black.

For below left, I used the Dimensional Cube stencils with Bubblegum, Carnation, Violet, Orchid, and Sky.  The card on the right uses the Dimensional Rectangles stencils with Sky, Dusk, and Flannel (I used Sky twice inking one layer with a lighter hand than the other).

Next up. I used the Stepped Back Blocks stencil on the left, with Ocean, Mist and Raindrop, and 3D Box stencils with Sky, Dusk, Night, and Twilight, using several of those colors multiple times.

Finally, I pulled out the Giant Firework stencil, which is a good one to have in your stash just because it works for all celebrations.  For the card on the right, I inked Blush and Butter.

For the card on the left,  couldn't resist pulling out Stickles Solar Flare Glitter Gel.  In addition to the 'regular' sparkle, there are fun star shaped pieces in this gel which make is especially festive.  

That's all for me today.  We're off to graduation tomorow night!

SSS Season of Wonder Release, 3D Box

 *This post contains affiliate links to Simon Says Stamp.

It's a release day at Simon Says Stamp!  The Season of Wonder release is live and there are all sorts of pretty fantastic new products available.  I designed three items for this release including the 3D box stencils I'm showcasing today.

There are two stencils included in this set.  To create the full design, you ink the stencil with the squares once, and the one with the parallelograms eight times by inking and rotating 90 degrees four times, and then flipping the stencil to the back side and doing the same thing.

This is what the full pattern looks like.  

I'll confess that I somehow managed to not write down all the colors for these cards, but I'm pretty sure the purple cards includes Morning, Twilight, Galaxy, Heather, Violet, and Iris.  I might have used a couple of those colors twice with varying levels of heaviness when inking.  

The completed panel was trimmed down, and I finished the card off with the Basic Box Card Happy Birthday die which was die cut from cardstock that I inked with Galaxy for the sentiment.  The shadow piece was inked on the edges with Twilight, and the completed sentiment was popped up.

For the Teal/Green card, I believe that the colors used included Seafoam, Surf, Tidepool, Tropic, Spring Dublin, and Lucky, and maybe one more color.  Sorry!  I got in a stenciling zone and lost my mind.  I finished this card off with a sentiment strip from the Be You Sentiment Strips pack.

While I think that the basic pattern looks amazing, there are so many other ways to use the stencils.

For both of the next two cards, the parallelogram was used just on one side, and rotated 90 degrees four times.

For the pink, I used Bubblegum, Guava, Lilac, and Orchid on light pink cardstock.

The You're On My Heart die was cut four times from pink cardstock and adhered together, and then once from white which was slightly offset to make the sentiment pop.

I did the same thing for this next card, inking and rotating four times, using Lemonade, Guava, Marine, and Twilight inking VERY lightly and I did not wipe off the stencil particularly well between layers which gives it a slightly more muted look.  This time I also used the stencil with the squares very lightly inking that with Flannel.

A sentiment from the Clean Line Stacks set was stamped and die cut to complete the card.

These cards are even a bit more playful. 

For the green/lime card, the pattern is created by inking, rotating 180 degrees and inking again. I put the stencil back in the zero degree position and flipped it.  Then I inked again, rotated 180 degrees, ad inked a last time.  I also selectively inked some of the large squares.

For this one I used Celery, Limelicious, Lucky and Fairway as well as a sentiment from the Reverse Be You Sentiment Strips set.

For the blue/green card, I inked, flipped 90 degrees, and inked.  Then, switching color families, I put the stencil back in the zero position, flipped the stencil, rotated 90 degrees, inked, flipped the stencil, and inked again.  The large squares were selectively inked in the darker colors.  For the greens, I used Dublin and Lucky.  I used Lucky for the green squares also, inking them with a very heavy hand.  For the blues I used Marine and Cadette, using Cadette  with a heavy hand for the squares.

The Hi There sentiment completed the look.

For the this last card, I used s a soft gray cardstock and some more muted colors to create a masculine look.

This design was created by inking, rotating 180 degrees, and inking again with Aspen.  I then set the stencil back to the zero position, flipped, rotated 90 degrees, inked with Morning, rotated 180 degrees, and inked again with Morning.  I then selectively inked some of the squares with Earl.

I used a retired Betting on You sentiment which was die cut three times from the same dark gray cardstock I used for the base, adhered together, and then directly to my card.

This really is just a fun stencil set to play with.  I feel like I only just scratched the surface.  You can easily get lost in a world of geometric patterns experimenting with these stencils.

I have a couple other designs in this release that I'll be sharing inspiration for in the coming days, but here is a quick look at them:

I Was Wrong

Moving X Cover

Be sure to head over to Simon to check out the full release.  Lots of great fall and holiday products that I think you'll love.

See you back here tomorrow for a fun blog hop!