simple valentine sneak peek 2

Welcome back to another day of sneak peek projects with my new Simple Valentine set that will be for sale on the 15th at Papertrey Ink!

Yesterday I talked a little about using the images included in the set to layer and build your own custom heart designs. Ink is a kind of important supply when you are stamping. And there are so many inks out there to try and use. But to really understand how ink works, you need to sit down and play around with them. You are going to find that some inks work well to layer versus others and you will also find that some colors of the same inks respond a little differently. To get to know them you have to play - call in to work "crafty" as Mish would say...!

So for today, I created 3 krafty cards where I played a bit with the image building and inks. I love the new formulation of pigment ink that Papertrey is transitioning to. Pigment inks have always been at the top of my list as far as what I like to use for stamping (I think it's the printmaker in me...) Normally, they take a bit longer to dry and you need to allow for that, but the new Papertrey pigment ink really dries so much faster. I am very impressed. 

Here's a look at my first card in progress. I stamped the solid heart base in Fresh Snow and then did the polka dot border overlay in Raspberry Fizz (pigment!) and you will see on the finished card that I also added a Hibiscus Burst (pigment!) heart to the center to finish off the heart image.

On tip I like to give about working with pigment inks, is that I like the pad to be on the drier side. If your pad is too "juicy" things will get messy and your ink will take forever to dry. Take your "juicy" pad and press out the excess ink on scratch paper. You will be so much more successful with your pigment ink stamping! Have a reinker of all of your colors of inks (order it right away when you order your stamp pads!) so that you can add ink in when your pad gets too dry.

For this next card, I stamped the heart bases alternating in Pure Poppy (original formula yet) and Raspberry Fizz. I layered on more hearts to build my heart images again with Pure Poppy and Fresh Snow ink (and yes, I know I need to clean my blocks...!)

This simple stamped heart border doesn't need lots of layers and mats of cardstock. Working with just the images and ink is what makes the card work.

For my final card, I played with just the solid heart stamp image itself and built a collage of hearts. I started with the lightest color and ended with the darkest: Fresh Snow > Hibiscus Burst > Raspberry Fizz.

I love how the colors look where they are overlapping. And when it came to finishing off this card, all it needed was the sentiment and rounding off the bottom corners. Simple, sweet, and beautiful all at once. The finished card reminds me of prints that you might find on Etsy.

I bet you noticed a few more peeks of my new Simple Valentine patterned paper in the cards I shared today. There are 6 sheets of 6 different designs included in the 8x8 collection and it too will be available for sale on the 15th at Papertrey Ink.

There's more to see today! Nichole has more sneak peeks of my Simple Valentine set on her blog today and Dawn will have more peeks of her new set over at her blog. If you haven't already, hop over to Kim Hughes' blog to see peeks of her new template from the new Click Simple library.

More tomorrow - thank you for stopping by today!

Krafty Valentine Cards

stamps: Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

ink: Pure Poppy, Raspberry Fizz, Hibiscus Burst, Fresh Snow, True Black, Simple Valentine (Papertrey Ink)

other: scallop border punch (Stampin' Up!), corner chomper (We R Memory Makers)