A Colourful Collection for Rudolf Day

When I bought the Chocolate Baroque plate of Christmas stamps that I have been using recently, I also spotted this lovely stamp by Indigo Blu, which I saw as having the potential to make some quick and easy cards. So I thought I would get it inked up for Rudolf Day, (The 25th of each month).  To find out more visit Sandra's blog, Stamping for Pleasure.

For the first card I started by checking that the stamp would fit on an A6 card which it did, perfectly. So I cut two A4 sheets of white light-weight card into quarters. I set two pieces aside in case I had to redo any, but as they all worked quite well first time, I will probably think of a another couple of colour combinations and make two more later today.

I then covered one piece with Antique Linen DI ink, using my ink dusters, another fairly new acquisition that hadn't been used before. I liked the subtle, slightly mottled affect I got with these.  I darkened the edges with Walnut stain and used the same pad to stamp the image. Once it was dry, I trimmed it up and mounted it onto a colour co-ordinated base card. Looking for a sentiment stamp I found this little verse stamp that I made using image pac, many moons ago, and it fitted the space perfectly. I finished it off with a few dabs of brown stickles for a little bit of sparkle.

Satisfied with this, I then made the other five in the same way, using two toning colours, except for one where I used strong contrasts. All but one of the inks were Distress Ink pads. My colour combinations, starting with the contrasts, were, Squeezed lemonade/Festive berries, Antique linen/Walnut stain, Tumbled glass/Peacock feathers, Iced spruce/Mowed lawn, Spun sugar/Picked raspberry, and Shaded lilac/ Memento Paris dusk. As you can see, I gave my recently bought Spring and Summer special ink pad sets a good try out.

On the green card I tried adding glossy accents to the baubles and sprinkled some glitter on them, but I didn't feel this really added anything worthwhile to the card, so for the others I just used the stickles.

So here is my set of six cards. I am sorry the photos aren't better. The two blues are actually very different from one another, one being lilac blue and the other turquoise. The stickles don't really show either but they add a nice bit of sparkle. It is very, very bright here today and it is difficult to photograph the colours accurately. As well as linking these to Sandra's Rudolf day challenge, I am also entering them in the:

Christmas Stampin' All Year Long Challenge 25: Non Traditional Colours.