Using Stamps Differently with PI Pencils | Botanical Post Series #2
For the second card in my Botanical Post Series, I wanted to use one of the Personal Impressions stamp sets in a way that was quite different from its original design.
This is another set I designed for Personal Impressions using imagery they already had. Once you have the finished stamp in front of you, though, you don't have to use the whole image exactly as it was designed. Sometimes taking it apart a little gives you much more to play with.
For this card, I used the Postage Paid & Leaves stamp with PI (Personal Impressions) Pencils, but I also used just parts of the stamped image to build up the design.
What I used
- Personal Impressions Postage Paid & Leaves stamp set
- Personal Impressions Be-Leaf Sentiments stamp set
- Personal Impressions Woodless Watercolour Pencils (PI Pencils)
- VersaFine Clair Fallen Leaves ink
- Watercolour card
- Twine and lace from my stash
- 3D foam pads
- Gel medium
- Small gold heart sequins
Building the background
One of the things I like about PI Pencils is being able to dip the pencil into water and colour directly onto a stamp.
I started by scribbling some pencil onto a piece of watercolour card and blending it out with a large paintbrush to create the background.
Once that was dry, I coloured parts of the stamp with a green PI Pencil and, while the colour was still wet, stamped it onto the background.
I didn't use a stamp block because I didn't want a complete, uniform image. I wanted bits of the leaves rather than the whole stamp, so I held the stamp in my fingers and pressed it onto the areas where I wanted the detail.
It's a really simple way of getting more freedom from a larger stamp. You can decide which parts of the image you want to use rather than having to stamp the whole thing..
Creating the focal image
For the main image, I did stamp the whole Postage Paid & Leaves design onto a separate piece of watercolour card and coloured it with PI Pencils.
It's a fairly fiddly image to cut out, but I don't mind a bit of fussy cutting when it gives me more options for the finished design.
I also kept some of the wording from the original stamp. Rather than cutting everything away, I left the little “lettre” detail showing through the leaves. Once I was happy with it, I attached the cut-out image to the card using 3D foam pads.
It ended up being positioned centrally... ish!
I'm a firm believer in the “ish” measurement. When you're making by hand, I don't think everything needs to be perfectly precise.
Finishing touches
This card also took me slightly outside my usual style.
I love twine, but I don't often use ribbon or lace because I haven't always found a natural way to incorporate them. For this card, though, I added some lace and twine behind the stamped sentiment and fixed them in place with gel medium.
You could use 3D foam pads instead, but I wanted to make sure the twine and lace stayed exactly where I had put them.
I also added a few small gold heart sequins and doodled some extra hearts with a red pencil to bring the sentiment and the rest of the card together.
Looking at the stamp differently
This card is quite a long way from the original stamp design, which is exactly why I wanted to make it.
I didn't change the stamp itself. I changed how I used it.
Parts of the image became background detail, the complete image became a focal point that I could cut out, and even some of the original wording became another little design element.
That's one of the things I enjoy about designing and using stamps. The finished stamp is only the starting point. Once you start breaking the image down and using individual elements, you can take it somewhere quite different.
This is the second card in my Botanical Post Series. You can see the first card, where I used the botanical and postal imagery with PI Pencils in a softer watercolour style, HERE.
Until next time, take care,
xxx
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