Circle Stamping

Spring has sprung, friends, and I've been in a very floral mood recently! From planting flowers in my yard, to "planting" them on paper, too! I spent a few evenings of Spring Break in our hotel room stamping and coloring, and these were some results:

I've been wanting to try my hand at circle (or wreath) stamping and came up with a template similar to an awesome idea and tool Gina K created with her wreath builder kit and template. Until such time as her template is back in stock and I can get my hands on it, here's a look at the template I created:

I used a 6" square piece of X-Press It Stencil Sheet (made of thick vinyl with repositionable adhesive on the back). Or another great product to make the template with would have been Ellen Hutson's Art Magnetic Masking Material -- especially with use in the magnetic MISTI!

Note: You will need to use the original MISTI if using a 6-inch square template, as the 6-inch template will not fit into the Mini MISTI.

Then I cut two 4-inch squares in the stencil material, using my paper trimmer (I used a 4-inch cut piece of cardstock as a guide and drew pencil lines around it). Of course, you can make the template as large or small as you'd like. I was hoping to use square dies to make the process a bit more simple, but none of my square dies were as large as 4 inches! Anywho ... just make the two squares at 45-degree angles to each other!

The template aids you in stamping on all four sides and corners of the square, and using it is simple:

Place a 4-inch piece of cardstock inside the template in your MISTI.
Position a stamp onto the paper where you would like to start forming your circle (I started stamping the pink flowers above first, and aligned it in the upper left corner of the paper in the template).
Pick the stamp up with the lid of the MIST, ink it, then stamp.
Rotate cardstock 45 degrees, so it is now in the next corner of the template; stamp.
Repeat turning the cardstock and stamping until the circle is complete.

For this first example, I stamped each element of the Essentials by Ellen Stay Golden stamp set separately (each large pink flower, each small yellow/orange and lavender and teal flower, each set of leaves, each pineapple). Here's a look at the completed design, along with the Hero Arts ink cube colors I used: (Ultra Pink, Field Greens, Butter Bar, Moss, Soft Cantaloupe, Passion Flower, Tide Pool, Black):

To complete the Mahalo card, I die cut the center out of the design I created, backed it with a yellow mat and popped it up on foam tape. The stamped piece was mounted onto a teal 4.25" square card base. Some of the flowers and pineapple tops were accented with Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen (such gorgeous shimmer in person!):

To make the floral arrangement on the Oh Happy Day card, I clustered all three larger element stamps from the Essentials by Ellen Bold Blooms stamp set (the red flower, yellow spray, and green leaf) onto the half of the cardstock square, inked and stamped, then turned the cardstock fully and stamped the cluster on the other side of the cardstock:

Ink colors used: Hero Arts Pale Tomato, Moss, Butter Bar, Black

To complete the design, I stamped the small black spray flower and black dots separately using the template. To finish this card, I matted the 4" stamped piece with black cardstock and mounted the piece onto a red 4.25" card base. The red flowers were glittered with the Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen and three clear sequins placed in the flower centers.

I hope you will give this technique a try. I'm sure glad I did, because it was tons of fun!