Collage stamping with shimmer

One of my favorite go-to techniques for making cards is collage stamping. It's easy to do and really hard to mess up. And since I usually stamp a whole 8-1/2" x 11" piece of card stock, I get backgrounds for four cards at one time.

This afternoon I was feeling creatively stuck, so I decided to fall back on collage stamping just to get my juices flowing. I think it was a successful endeavor, and here is the card I created:

Supplies (all Stampin' Up!^®):
Stamps: Nature Walk
Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Baja Breeze, textured Soft Suede
Ink: Baja Breeze, Soft Suede, Not Quite Navy, River Rock
Accessories: Frost White shimmer paint, sponge daubers, Log Cabin Smooch Spritz, Vintage trinkets, basic pearls, Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, Jewelry Tag punch, Baja Breeze seam binding ribbon, Soft Suede taffeta ribbon, Victoria crochet trim, Tombow Mono liquid glue, bone folder

Collage stamping is a pretty self-explanatory technique, but if you've never tried it, here are some general steps and a few tips. First, determine which ink color you want to use with each image. Then start stamping. If all the images I'm using are about the same size, I usually start with the lightest color ink. Otherwise I start with the largest image. It's also a good idea at this point to think about whether you want to overlap stamped images or keep them separate. Continue stamping with each color and image, covering the entire piece of card stock.

Once I finished stamping all the images with ink, I decided to do some stamping with shimmer paint. I used a sponge dauber to apply the shimmer paint directly on the bumblebee image and then stamped it over the whole piece of card stock, reapplying the shimmer paint with each stamp. It's a very cool, but subtle, effect; you can barely see it when looking directly at the card, as in the above photo, but it creates a great shimmer when you tip the card and it catches the light.

I still wanted a bit more of a vintage look, so I spritzed the card stock with Log Cabin Smooch Spritz. (I still haven't mastered the Smooch Spritz, so I did get a spot on the card stock that was a little blotchy, but this section turned out well.) I cut my stamped card stock, ran my bone folder along the edges to add some distressing and matted it with textured Soft Suede card stock. I wrapped Baja Breeze ribbon around the card stock and tied pieces of Soft Suede ribbon and crochet trim into the knot. Then I adhered the whole piece to the Baja Breeze card base.

The last couple of details were flowers and tags. I punched six flower shapes from Baja Breeze card stock, glued three of them to the card, crumpled the other three (just a bit) and then glued them over the first three flowers. And of course they needed to have little pearl centers. For the first tag, I inked the bee image with Soft Suede, applied shimmer paint directly over the ink and then stamped the image. I punched out the bee with the Jewelry Tag punch and then punched two more shapes out of Baja Breeze and textured Soft Suede card stock. I put all three tags on a small safety pin and pinned it through the ribbon knot.

I am really pleased with how this card turned out, and I can't wait to use the rest of my collage-stamped piece for other cards. Thanks for stopping by!