Frame it Up

Welcome to July's Artist Team Blog Hop brought to you by Club Scrap. Each month the team presents a themed challenge or technique. The  purpose of the blog hop is to demonstrate the beauty of paper crafts.  Today we'll be showing you framing ideas with your stamps and stencils. 

If you just happened on the blog hop today because you're a regular reader of my blog, and you'd like to view the entire hop, you can start back at Club Scrap. If you're already hopping and linked to me from Tina's Blog, you're in the right spot.

Inspiration for this technique came from July's NBUS (Never Before Used Stuff) challenge on the Club Scrap forum. The goal is to create a frame using your stamps or stencils.  Now you could just use a "frame" type stamp but I decided to use those small border type stamps and create frames.  This turned out to be a little more difficult than expected.  I'm too much of a perfectionist and really like my frame corners to be exact.

 

 

I started off with using the large 5x7 cards from the Vintage Botany Greetings to Go collection. This first card I used a half circle dotted stamp from "By the Seashore". I stamped it twice to make a full circle.  Easy peasy, right?! With a little masking, it does line up well.

Club Scrap papers, stamp, tag, ribbon, button and leaves. Tim Holtz oxide inks. American Crafts twine.

Here's another simple border stamp from Navajo that I used to frame the background mat. I did use my Misti to line up the sides. I love how the green leafy paper we received in Transformations matches well with Vintage Botany!

Club Scrap paper, tags, cut aparts and stamps. American Craft twine.

 I absolutely adore how this framing worked on this card!  I used the Versailles stencil which I do believe I've never used.  I taped off the section of the stencil (1/2 inch from each corner) I didn't want to use and inked all four sides directly onto the card base.

 

All products by Club Scrap.

I have a little secret about my bows on cards.  Bows and knots on ribbon (especially the wider ribbons) make the card very bulky for mailing.  I run the mat with the bow or knot tied through my Big Shot.  It totally flattens the knot and makes mailing so much easier.

Now this last card did not photography very well and I apologize. I die cut the frame and added the sentiment along the edges.  Now...this took several attempts to get right.  You really do need to pay attention to the direction of the sentiment. Just rotating the frame each time you stamped didn't work well.  Some sentiments were upside down, one side was reading up and one side was reading down.  I added dimensional foam adhesive to the frame and backed it with a very light monochromatic print.

Club Scrap papers, ribbon and stamp. Paper Smooches heart die.

Thank you for hoping with us today! I hope you enjoyed the different framing with stamps and stencils. Please continue on to see what amazing frames Kelly has created.

Here are other examples of framing:

Frame It

Position It

Into the Woods