Hi and WELCOME! I'm so glad you've stopped by today! It's time for the Papertrey May Countdown and today, I get the honor of helping to introduce you to a brilliant new stamp set and coordinating dies designed by Betsy Veldman, called Heart & Sole. I had so much fun working with this set, and the amazing thing is, I was making cards for GUYS.....which, as we all know, are sometimes way more difficult than they are FUN! Haha! (I'm just keepin' it real, here!) :)
My favorite images from this set, are the ones that allow you to stamp the bottom of a tennis shoe because.....COLORS! Tennies come in so many different wild and crazy color combos these days, and now you can stamp your own -- even for guys -- in any color scheme you want! Let me show you what I did.....
All of the new products you're getting peeks at this week will be available for purchase at Papertrey Ink beginning on May 15 at 10pm EST.
To get things started for this card, I did the watercoloring on the background because I needed to give it time to dry. I used my Zig markers to color four colors in little patches on the watercolor card stock and then went over it with a water brush, being careful to blend just a bit between each color, while keeping the bulk of each color true and not mixed with the other colors.
While it was drying, I set about die cutting and stamping my soles. I used four different stamps from Heart & Sole, to create these shoes and for the record -- because I know some of you will be wondering -- easy peasy to line these up! ;)
HERE'S A TIP FOR YOU: To add a little masculine touch, consider using a strip of torn card stock, rather than a straight edge. It's subtle, but it's just another way to add to the overall feel of masculinity on your card.
After the watercolor was dry, I stamped a sentiment from Heart & Sole (I LOVE how these mirror the lines of the shoes!) and put everything together on the card front.
Ok, so on to a different type of shoe -- a boot! My dad is an outdoorsman....fishing is his first love, but he's also become quite a hunter, too, so I was thrilled to be able to make him a Father's Day card with an outdoors-y boot sole! This will be perfect for him!
So I paired the boot and sentiments from Heart & Sole with some branches from the previously released Spruce & Sprigs! I told you when that set came out, that it was great for year-round applications and this is a perfect example of that!
AND HERE'S ANOTHER TIP FOR YOU: You can add an extra bit of stamped dimension and really reiterate the scene you've created on your focal panel, by stamping more of those same images behind the focal panel, on your actual card front. See how I added additional branches on the card front, behind the white layer? I stamped them in Olive Twist ink on the Olive Twist card base, so it kept them nice and neutral, but just added another bit of texture.
I used four of the sentiments from Heart & Sole here. I love that I was able to customize my card exactly, to say just what I wanted to for my Dad.
And seriously, how fun are those little labels on the bottom of the boot?! There are several different options to stamp in each opening, which is so fun. And the boot sole itself, is actually two separate stamps that nestle together. Again, not hard at all to line up. I stamped them in kraft and cocoa bean inks.
Oh, and one more thing, I used a couple of the new Mix & Mat dies to create that focal panel and it's cute little corners. Keep an eye out at Nichole's blog this week, for all the details on that!
Ok, so one more card for today and it should come as no surprise to you that I just HAD to stamp those tennis shoes in some girly colors, too!! How fun are these?!! Gah. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted a new pair of tennies just because of the fun colors! But a person can only wear so many tennis shoes! lol. And considering that I pretty much live in flip flops for as many months as I possibly can, I really don't even have that many times that I actually need to wear tennis shoes. But that's neither here nor there, when those shoes are all so preeeeeetty!
Ok, so I created a sweet little birthday card for a girl friend with Heart & Sole, simply by swapping out the colors and using a couple of birthday-appropriate sentiments from the set.
I stamped the "Happy Birthday" on a half & half die cut to make it pop a bit.
HERE'S ONE MORE TIP FOR YOU: When you're using two separate sentiments in two different places on the card, such as I did here, stamp one of them on the main panel while stamping the other on an additional die cut layer, to help it stand out a bit.
Also, don't be afraid to trim off part of an image, if it helps to balance things on your card. I really wanted to incorporate two different shoes here and placed them where I did, so that everything else on the card was balanced. That meant that part of the top shoe was hanging off the card. By trimming off that edge, it still allowed me to have both shoes on the card, without having a big ole chunk sticking out the top of my card. Ha!
Ok, I hope you've enjoyed these cards as much as I enjoyed making them! What do you think of Heart & Sole?
Be sure to visit Nichole Heady today, to check out all the additional inspiration the team is bringing you! I'll see you back here soon, with more Countdown projects to share. Stay tuned!
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{Thanks for Sticking By Me supplies -- click on thumbnails}
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{Happy Father's Day Dad supplies}
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{No One Could Ever Fill Your Shoes supplies}
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