How to use your Background Stamps

It’s Mojo Monday again and today I wanted to show you how to use all those Background stamps and papers that you have.  I love background stamps – they are super hard for me to part with when I have a sale, and I use them over and over – you should take a look at your stash too!

Today’s card is perfect for backgrounds.  With this design, I show you how I used four different sets plus some of my Christmas Paper from Season of Style in a birthday card.  Here is this week’s sketch and my result.

Creative Tips –

• Rather than use the Season of Style Designer Paper Stack paper as the accent triangles, you can go for a much bolder statement with it as the background.
• You do not want to compete with the bold stripes, so when you choose your background patterns, you will want to stay away from bold lined patterns or Chevrons.  I chose some completely different designs plus one lightly lined (striped) pattern. 
• The stripes from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp work because it has a varying amount of white space in-between the lines and they are thin lines, not bold like the Designer Paper.
• The backgrounds you see here are Dictionary, Gorgeous Grunge, World Map and Swallowtail – yes, that’s part of the butterfly wing!  I love patterned images like that – other good ones are the flowers from Regarding Dahlias and Blooming with Kindness.
• The greeting is from the must have greeting set of this year – Really Good Greetings.  To help it to stand out from all the patterns and busy goings on of the card, you will want to emboss it and leave it alone on that big circle (Circle #7, counting from smallest to largest in the Circles Collection Framelits) with the large amount of white space.  The contrast the extra white space brings to the card lets it shine.  After all – the greeting says it all – and it wouldn’t work if it got hidden by all the competing elements.
• To help the circle stand out a bit more, you can edge it with your versamark ink pad and embossed it in black as well.
• The flower is from the BigZ die – Blossom Party Originals.  You can add a center by itself – like the black center here, which was punched with the circle punch from the Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, or top it off like I did with the Large Rhinestone Jewel. 
• To give the flower a little depth, pop it up with a Stampin’ Dimensional.
• To make the banner ends, you can use the new Hexagon Punch or make your own with paper snips or a Square Punch.  View my Banner video here

The sketch this week is a classic that you can use over and over again. 

New Class Release – Final 36 hours for the Pre-release Discount!

Each month, we are going to highlight a stamp set with four four creative cards that will wow your friends and family.  This month we are highlighting the Festive Flurry Bundle.  Pre-register today and save 10% through midnight, Tuesday August 20th!  Get all the Details Here

To Shop 24/7 in the Creative Store – Click here!

Stamp Sets – Really Good Greetings (130333c, 130330w), Swallowtail (129216c, 131943w), Gorgeous Grunge (130517c, 130514w), Dictionary (130351c, 130348w), World Map (130345c, 130342w) Paper – Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Season of Style Designer Series Paper Stack, Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler Ink – Versamark, Basic Black Cool Tools – Circles Collection Framelits, 1 3/4” Circle Punch, Blossom Party Originals BigZ, Hexagon Punch, Itty Bitty Punch Pack The Perfect Finish – Stampin’ Dimensionals, Large Rhinestone Basic Jewels