Diamonds in a circle

Hello everyone,

It's Mansi taking over the blog today and I'm sharing how to stretch your supplies so you can create unexpected results from a specific kind of stamp! Many of us have seen beautiful cards created with PinkFresh Studio's Pop Out Diamond Cling Stamp Set. When I saw these stamps, my brain was racing!

How do I not make something "expected" or "traditional" with this shape? How do I take it even further? Whenever I'm looking for inspiration and trying to do something different, my instinct is to reach for my gel plate. This time, it was no different.

I stamped the images multiple times on a piece of cardstock with distress inks, intentionally offsetting them for a blurry effect. I then, rolled some inks on the gel plate and created an interesting looking background.

It was a good start (even though it may look like something one would typically trash!). I kept doing more layers for the background until I was happy with the texture and color variation I had achieved. Then I took a black glaze pen and outlined the stamped floral images.

They immediately popped against that very moody blue/gray background. I knew I had to add a dash of gold to the flower tips to make this pop! And as soon as I added those little dots, it all started coming together.

I then took my MFT Circle Die and cut out two different sized circles. Suddenly the entire imagery had changed from being distinctly diamond-shaped to having a unique circular focal point. This was beginning to look nothing like the suggested shape of the stamp set. Mission accomplished!

I used foam tape to adhere the smaller circle on to the bigger circle for some added dimension, stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from the same stamp set and my card topper was ready.

For the card base, I used my fingers to apply some gold acrylic paint, using thick paint at the top and bottom margins to introduce a textural element. Lastly, I added some thick gold dots and shiny stars to make this look really festive and special.

I think, even though, this has flowers, this makes for a really regal masculine card. What do you think? Do you like my take on switching things up with my geometric shapes?

Let me know in the comments.

See you all next time!

Mansi.