from my ink pad to yours

The Wintergreen Palette

An easy way to choose a palette is to work with a set of designer papers. In effect that's what I did when I made the batch of Wintergreen cards, some of which I posted a few weeks ago. You can see the complete collection I did with this here.

I'll be back with more cards from my Playful Palette tomorrow.

Playing with a Palette: Playful

This last week I tried something a little different that I hope will help me to keep stamping at least a little bit once I get busy with school again. I set out a palette of colors (Real Red, Ballet Blue, Green Galore and Summer Sun plus black and white or other neutrals) that I have used frequently over the years and cut up 1/2 and 1/4 sheets of cardstock, pulled out all the relevant inkpads, ribbons and embellishments. Then I stamped a bunch of quarter sheets with some of my background stamps, so I have a very healthy supply of backgrounds. I'm hoping that this will give me fewer decisions to make as I stamp, plus it's fun to see how many looks you can get with a relatively small number of colors. With selected items "organized" out on my work surface, hopefully I will be able to get some short but sweet stamping sessions in when I take study breaks.

I first came up with this color combo probably about 10 years ago when Stampin' Up!'s red was actually a lighter, orangier shade called Rocket Red. Does anyone remember that? Anyway, lots of people complained about that red but it really did look good in this color combo. And it's still a standby for me with Real Red. Sometimes I add in the Gable Green marker since it is so close to the Green Galore but gives me some extra shading abilities. I remember coming up with it because I wanted to color in an image from a Sell-a-bration set that had a little girl, grass and hearts on flower stems. I had stamped the image on glossy cardstock and wanted to color it with bright colors. I quickly found that Brilliant Blue and Glorious Green were too dark to let the line details show through so I had to use colors that were lighter. Hence, the color combination that after 10 years I'm finally giving the name of Playful - just so I can differentiate it once I introduce, hopefully, some other palettes.

I don't have all of my pictures ready yet but here a are few that I've done with this palette. Remember the difference between a palette and a color combination is that a palette is the set of colors that I can choose from; I won't use all of them in every card.

This is actually a card we did at a short stack class I did last fall. I know I've seen several variations of this layout on SCS but don't know just who to credit for it.
Stamps: Zoofari, It's Your Birthday
Inks:Black Stazon, Real Red, Green Galore, Ballet Blue, and Summer Sun markers
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Real Red, Green Galore, Ballet Blue, and Summer Sun
Accesories: Circle(1 1/4") and Square punches

The large star punch make the lettered stars from Nursery Necessities stand out in this card. No green but it still uses the palette.
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Inks:Real Red, Ballet Blue, and Summer Sun
Paper:Whisper White, Real Red, Ballet Blue, and Summer Sun
Accessories: large star punch, corner rounder punch(retired version)

Same palette without Ballet Blue and Summer Sun. I did another version of this for a swap but black embossed the cottony flower image in black instead of the dry embossed lines.
Stamps:Embrace Life
Inks:Basic Black, Green Galore marker
Paper:Whisper White, Basic Black, Real Red
Accessories:Red Grosgrain, Pretties Kit pearl