Make your own pattern paper! Another unfinished project.

Are you ready for some inspiration. One of the nicest things about owning stamps is being able to make customized patterned paper. If you own a good selection of ink pads and several stamp sets you are in a position to make multiple designs for your scrapbooking and stamping needs. And isn't it fun to just play around with different patterns and colors? Here I took the stamp set Floral Elements (unfortunately retired) and fell in love with the rounded off square shapes. Just looking at them immediately made me think of doing a grid pattern for a couple of cards. I made the cards up to the point of rounding the corners a couple of weeks ago at a crop but they were sitting in my unfinished box until yesterday. I'm so glad I finished them.

I already had out the three colors that go with the Daydream papers so I laid them out in front of me along with a Double Scrubber to clean off your stamps in between stamping. The colors are lilac mist, blush and sweet leaf.

Take three of the same sized squares and stamp each in a different color in a straight line on your 12 x 12 paper. It's totally okay if you go off the page, give up that perfectionism!!

Fill your paper with the squares. If you noticed I didn't follow a certain pattern, that way if I were to mess up, it wouldn't matter.

Cut your paper for cards, I made two 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 cards. Isn't that pattern pretty? See how easy this is, just choose a stamp set and play!

Round off the edges with a corner rounder and then use your foam tool (sponge on a stick) to distress the sides with one of the colors you used, I used blush.

Cut two card bases 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 each, score them at the 4 1/4 inch mark and fold.

Cut two 1 inch by 5 1/2 inch strips of the blush paper. Distress with the blush ink.

Glue the strip onto the patterned paper, about an inch up from the bottom.

Cut two pieces of white paper 2 1/8 by 2 1/8 and then cut blush paper 2 1/4 by 2 1/4, distress the edges with blush ink.

Since the colors are so big and bright, It's a Zoo stamp set just fits the look!

First take one of largest squares on your Floral Elements set and stamp in sweet leaf, attach to the blush mat.

Now take the hippo and stamp it in blush at an angle so you can flue the squares in a diamond shape on your card.


Cut a white piece of cardstock 1 inch by 2 inches, stamp the words "wild and crazy" on it and distress the edges.

Turn the card vertically, the opening at the right. Attach the hippo about 1/2 inch down from the top making sure that it sits on the sweet leaf strip evenly, the points of the diamond right in the center of the strip. Glue a ribbon one inch from the bottom and attach the "wild and crazy" saying on the left hand side about 1/2 inch from the side.

Since it's a simple card why not add a little liquid glass? I filled in the whole hippo. This much liquid glass will take an hour or two to dry so set it aside. It will become more clear as it dries (I took this picture while it was still wet) and then it will be very shiny and look like an epoxy sticker. Once dry you can glue the card front down on the card base, I let the four corners of the blush cardstock to show but you could use your corner rounder and cut them off if you like. Hope this gives you some other ideas on how to use your stamps!