Christmas Card Time: easy card with a background stamp

 Hello!

I'm going to show an easy technique to use with a background stamp. It's great for when you are making a gazillion Christmas cards and you're short on time. 

Finished card-background stamp

Today's stamp set is a fun Christmas background stamp. I got it from The Stampin' Place. The owners (a couple) retired in late 2021, so unfortunately this stamp is no longer available. I bought several of my personalized stamps from them, but never realized that they had other stamps until exploring their site after they announced they would be closing.

That said, you can find lots of Christmas background stamps, and this technique works with other background stamps, too.

Use blending foamed dome to ink

As soon as I saw that today's stamp set was a Christmas background stamp, I knew the look that I wanted. I wanted the background to be muted 

I used a domed foam applicator to put ink on the stamp--not all over but on most of it. Using the applicator made it look a bit more like it was a torn page fragment. 

stamped image

I actually first stamped the entire image (inked regularly--ink pad to stamp). I thought about trying to tear it artfully and maybe ink the edges in beige, or crinkle it up to make it soft and aged. I didn't know if it would look very good, though.

Here's a look at the full stamped image next to the partially inked image:

fully inked/partially inked

When I first saw the background stamp, I thought it would work well with the Car Critters Christmas Add-On stamps by Lawn Fawn, but since I'd just done 3 different Car Critters cards (still to be posted!), I wasn't quite ready to do another.

I decided to keep it simple with holly. 

die cut, then stamped

I usually stamp a basic image first, then die cut it. This die, though, incorporated 2 stamps instead of just one. There's no knowing if I'd line things up well if I tried stamping first, so I went ahead and die cut the shape, then added the stamped images.

Cheater method: inking the card base just around the edges

It was fine that the background stamped image had too much white space on one side. I like to trim my card fronts a little before adhering them to the back of the card. I did that, but then I felt there was too much white-on-white with the card front having a lot of white space and the card base being white. 

To remedy that, I chose to use the same color ink I'd used for stamping the background to create a visual mat behind the card front. First I used washi tape to mask off so that no ink would go onto the back of the card base. Then I used the foamed dome applicator again to ink up the outside edges of the card base. There's no need to color the entire base front, since most of it would be covered.

Here's a look at what I used:

Stamp/dies used

The die came from a stamp set by Close to My Heart, a longtime stamping company that just closed a few months ago (again: the owner retired). Oops--I forgot to show the second page of stamps that came in that set--the holly leaves & berries stamps were on that page.

So...while you can't get the stamps I used (maybe on eBay?), you can easily use this partially-inked stamp method on the stamps that you do have.

OK--back to watching the Olympics. Have an enjoyable day--you deserve it!