*Turnabout Blog Hop*

Hello Everyone and welcome to the July Blog Hop with Scrap'n Stamp.  This month, the design team has been playing with the Concord & 9th Turnabout stamps.  There are some WONDERFUL designs of these stamps to play with....  I may or may not have more than a handful of them!

These are some pretty neat stamps to play with.  You do need a stamp positioning tool of some sort to use the stamps to their best ability.  You get things set up according to the directions (which can be a challenge, but it's worth the effort!) and you stamp the image four different times, turning your cardstock in the stamp positioning tool each time.  You can use one colour of ink, two colours of ink or four colours of ink to create some neat designs.  I've also seen some people only stamp the image one or two times.  You need to feel like you can break the rules with these a little!  There are some *great* tutorials on YouTube... I encourage you to watch some of the ones by Justine Hovey, Jennifer McGuire and Concord & 9th.

I find these stamps a bit of a challenge.... not because of the style of the stamp, but because they don't scream "clean and simple" to me.... So I decided I'd try to do something a little different.  I pulled out the Birthday Basics Turnabout set, cut a piece of cardstock to 5.5" square and found four colours of inks I liked... and I stamped up a big square background piece.  And then I set it aside while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do.  I had a lot of ideas, but I finally settled on this...

Yes, I made you three cards today!  I treated my 5.5" square as a one sheet wonder... and while I left a small piece off a card, I did manage to use most of it.  As these are all very clean and simple, I didn't bother with any process photos...

This was the first card I made... I cut a strip 1.75" X 5.5" and used my We R Memory Keepers Layers Guides to create a 1/16" border on two sides in a teal cardstock.  I adhered this to the side of a top fold white card and stamped the sentiment the Sprinkles Turnabout stamp set in the teal ink.

This was card #2... I cut a piece of my stamped background paper to 2.25 X 3.5" and once again used the We R Memory Keepers Layers Guides to create a purple border.  I stamped the Happy Birthday Greeting from the Birthday Basics Turnabout stamp in VersaMark ink and embossed it in white embossing powder on purple cardstock.  I trimmed it down and then cut the "v"s in to the sides to create the banner look.

And finally, card #3.  I used circle dies to cut both the background paper piece and a slightly larger green circle.  I added this to a white panel, used my We R Memory Keepers Layers Guides to great a boarder and put it all on to a white top fold card.  I stamped the sentiment from MFT All Smiles in VersaMark ink and embossed it in white on black cardstock.  I trimmed down the strip and cut in the fishtail on one end.

I hope you can see that you can take something is truly anything but clean and simple and by using small amounts of it, make clean and simple cards.

Now for the fun... I hope you will continue along the blog hop and visit with my fellow Designers...  and of course, leave a little comment love on each of their blogs for your chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate from Scrap'n Stamp!!!  Also, if you go shopping at Scrap'n Stamp this month, you can take 15% off all Concord & 9th by using the coupon code CCD15

Scrap'n Stamp/Tara

Dawn

Nancy E

Kia

Chala

Laurie

Susan

Nancy F

Deb

Sandi