What a Hoot! - August Stamp of the Monoth Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the first Stamp of the Month blog hop for our new 2014-15 Annual Inspirations catalog & idea book.  If you've arrived here from Carla Creates, or if you're just starting out, you're in the right place! Just hop along in a circle until you come back to where you started.

This month, our stamp set is What a Hoot - a fun set of 17 owl-icious stamps, especially well-suited for Halloween and Fall projects. I wanted to play with both options, using only cardstock and ink, and here are the results:

Now how cute did those turn out?! The simplicity of cardstock and ink opens up a ton of possibilities for colors and patterns, but I did actually use two of our new paper collections as color inspirations for these.

For this card, I got my color inspiration from the new Scaredy Cat paper - Black, Sunset, Thistle, and Colonial White. I didn't have any Thistle cardstock yet, so I used the Dot Embossing Folder on some Colonial White cardstock, then used a Sponge Dauber to swirl on Thistle ink from the stamp pad. I stamped the owl image directly on a Colonial White panel in Black. I then stamped the swirls directly in the image, using a post-it mask to keep them all inside the lines.  I stamped the image again on Sunset and cut out the "caped" portion, then adhered it directly on top of the original image. I also stamped the mask image on this piece.  I stamped the "bat wings" in black and swirled on Thistle ink. After cutting out the wings, I mounted them with 3-D Foam Tape.

For this card, I got my color inspiration from the new Pathfinding paper line. The pattern paper is random stamped with the flower image in the stamp set and Olive ink. I colored in the images using the Blending Pen and ink from the stamp pads. The card base is Chocolate cardstock run through the Woodgrain Embossing Folder. Everything else is just plain cardstock with sponged edges. I added Bronze Shimmer Trim, some flowers from my stash, and a couple of Gold Assortment Bling Gems.

If you'd like to shop for any of the products I used, there are links underneath each picture below. The links open in a new window so you can continue the hop from right here! Otherwise, if you're ready to hop along, let's head over to Shirley's Mom N Me Scrap and see what she has to share this month!

What a Hoot - Stamp of the Month

Cardstock - in Sunset, Colonial White, Chocolate, Barn Red, Champagne, Lagoon, and Olive

Dot Embossing Folder

Woodgrain Embossing Folder

Non-Stick Micro-Tip Scissors

Sponge Daubers

3-D Foam Tape

Bronze Shimmer Trim

Bling Gems Gold Assortment

Exclusive Inks Stamp Pads in Thistle, Sunset, Black, Chocolate, Barn Red, Lagoon, Olive, Glacier

Blending Pen

Pigment Power!

I love color in my scrapbooks! One of the easiest ways to add color is with stamping, but traditional dye-based ink pads don't always give the results I'm looking for. Enter pigment ink:

Pigment ink gives rich, opaque color directly on your colored cardstock, as well as on white or cream.

I love not having to stamp everything on a separate piece and adhere it! And the formulation from Close To My Heart dries pretty quickly with NO heat setting or embossing!

The best part about pigment inks is that the rich color is lightfast and will remain true much longer than dye-based inks.

Obviously, you can buy pigment inks a lot of places, but I have tried several kinds over my many years of crafting and I do highly recommend those from Close To My Heart.  The colors coordinate with their other products, they are a fast drying variety, and their small size & the fact that they come in a set makes them one of the best-priced products on the market.  Check out all of the pigment ink sets available right here.

Other products used in this layout:

• Jubilee Workshop on the Go
• 3-D Foam Tape
• Micro-tip scissors
• buttons

Mojo Monday Card

I've had a little to craft lately! I had supplies still sitting out from working on a layout I was submitting to Create magazine, so I made this fun little card for Mojo Monday:

The papers & stickers/chipboard are from the About A Boy line from Echo Park Paper, cardstocks are from my stash, and dots & Chocolate ink are from Close To My Heart.

I put a simple matching panel on the inside, leaving it blank for now, but with plenty of room for a stamped sentiment and/or a handwritten message.  I think this one would be great for a little boy's birthday.

Time's almost up for this week's Mojo Monday sketch, but be sure to check out the next one and play along if you can!