my secret is out....

Good morning! I'm so excited to share a little secret I've been keeping. I'm the Guest Designer for Scrapbook Steals today! I few months back Kristy asked me if I would consider being a guest designer. After I picked myself up off the floor, I didn't even need a second to think about it...of course! Kristy is one of those scrappers that I have looked up to and admired for years now. Not only is she incredibly talented but she's super sweet to boot! And I would get to work with Fancy Pants stamps?!? Woo hoo!! You all know how much I love stamping!

If you're not yet familiar with Scrapbook Steals, you have to check them out. Each day they bring you an awesome bargain available only for that day. Today's bargain is three 6x6 inch sets of clear stamps from Fancy Pants...Little Star, Brushed Designs and Fun & Free. Thats almost 70 stamps for only $16.99 plus s/h.

For this first layout, I stamped the leaf from the Little Star set directly onto the cardstock in green dye ink. Before re-inking I stamped the leaf again on the cardstock to achieve a lighter leaf image. The flowers were stamped and cut out. That cute little birdie was stamped in Brown Memento Ink and colored in with Koh-i-noor pencils and baby oil. The dotted line down the photos is from the Fun & Free set. One of the selling points of clear stamps is you can see exactly where you are stamping! No messing around with stamp positioners or eyeballing the placement.

Pine Barrens: Fancy Pants Little Star & Fun and Free Clear Stamps, Koh-i-noor pencils, Gypsy Font

This card uses the Brushed Designs set. This set has a variety of stamps that look like they were painted with a paintbrush. I wanted to emphasis that look. Because dye inks are waterbased, they will bleed when you stamp them on damp watercolor paper. If the color doesn't bleed out enough, you can go in and spritz them again.

Those roses keep popping up on my cards, don't they. They're just so much fun to make. I learned to make them from a video tutorial at LollyChops blog. Because you start out with cutting a spiral piece, I thought that the spiral brush stamp would create a great base of color. I stamped the image in dye based inks on wet paper. I didn't even wait for it to dry before I started cutting it out and curling it into shape. After I glued the center down, I worked the petals more, curling them down into position. A gemstone in the center and you have a handmade rose embellishment! The leaves I simply cut freehand, scoring the veins to create the rose petals.

Love card: Fancy Pants Brushed Designs Clear Stamps

For this next card, I stamped the background with the ribbon stamp in the Fun & Free set in Versamark and embossed it in Stampendous Crystal EP. I stamped the wings on white cardstock and cut them out, layering them between some diecut hearts.

Be Mine: Fancy Pants Fun & Free Clear Stamp set, Stampendous Crystal EP, Versamark

Using the Brushed Designs, I stamped the square image repeatedly on the card base in Versamark to leave a dark tone on tone effect. The flowers were stamped in black ink and colored in with Koh-i-noor pencils and baby oil. I used the brushed line stamps to create stems for the flowers.

Laugh card: Fancy Pants Brushed Designs Clear stamps

Can you tell I've been in an orange mood recently with this next layout, LOL! For this layout, I wanted to keep it simple to highlight that photo of my youngest. Using the stamps I created my own pattern paper.

I created a chain stitch with twine to use as the butterfly body. I snipped my ends short to look like antenna.

The top blue cardstock was made using the postal stamp image in the Fun & Free set. I cut the circle part of the image off so I could use just the curvy lines. For the numbered paper, I randomly placed my numbers on the acrylic mount and stamped them. The green piece of paper below that used the little bandaid looking image, stamped in blue. For that last piece I stamped the stars from the Little Star set in green ink.

For this last card, I wanted to try an embossed resist technique. I stamped the butterflies from the Little Star set in Versamark and embossed in clear EP. Next I went in and added washes of watercolor over the entire piece of cardstock. When it was dry I sponged a bit of blue pigment ink onto the edges and around the butterflies. All that was left to do was take a tissue and wipe the ink off the embossed images.

Dream Card: Fancy Pants Little Star Clear Stamps, Making Memories Pin

Thank you SO MUCH to Scrapbook Steals! I had so much fun inking those babies up! Be sure to stop over every day and check out the fantastic deals Scrapbook Steals has and don't wait too long on ordering the Fancy Pants sets. At that price they'll be gone in a heartbeat!