Guest Blogger: Yana Smakula

Hello, friends! This is Yana Smakula and I am excited to bring you my monthly video tutorial for Papertrey Ink from the “In The Studio with Yana” video series. I am sharing video tutorials on the 24th of each month, you can catch previous episodes here. 

Today I’m sharing several tips I love to use in my everyday stamping. I’m showing how to create color variation (or gradient) on stamped images with the help of inks and sharing one of my favorite tips for creating thick, chipboard-like, but light weight die cuts.

I started working on my project by stamping a beautiful wreath from the Sprig Wreath stamp stamp set. I used 2 ink pads to ink the image up – Ripe Avocado to ink up the top portion and Olive Twist to ink up the bottom. I used my mini MISTI stamp positioner to stamp the image several times to achieve gradual color transition and desired depth of color for my image.

I cut my image out using a coordinating die and I also die cut an identical shape out of regular white fun foam covered with Scrapbook Adhesives Adhesive Sheets on both front and back (you can also use Stick It or Spray Adhesive if you don’t have adhesive sheets). I love to use foam adhesive to pop my images up on a card, but sometimes I want to have a more solid layer, so instead of using foam adhesive I use fun foam and sticky sheets. 

I stamped and die-cut “Joy” from the Wet Paint Holiday Tags set in the same manner. This time I used Pure Poppy and Scarlet Jewel ink pads to get a gradient. I die-cut a fun foam layer, but also added several layers cut out of Pure Poppy cardstock to have red showing from the sides of my piece.

To stamp a background for this card I used images from the Wet Paint Holiday Tags stamp set. There are 3 solid circle sentiments that I really liked and so I stamped them in Soft Stone ink repeatedly to create a subtle background for my wreath.

I like to use patterned paper for my cards, but for a different style of cards. When I am playing with my stamps I prefer to use them to make just about everything for my projects. That being said you can certainly skip stamping the background and keep you card cleaner and simpler, or you can use patterned paper instead of stamping.

Once all of my piece were ready I assembled the card – foam mounted my wreath, added “Joy”, adhered die-cut pinecones and branches and stamped several red stars. 

Have fun stamping!  

• STAMPS: Sprig Wreath, Wet Paint Holiday Tags
• INK: Soft Stone, Dark Chocolate, Olive Twist, Ripe Avocado, Pure Poppy, Scarlet Jewel
• PAPER: Pure Poppy, Stamper's Select White
• DIES: Sprig Wreath dies, Wet Paint Holiday Tags die
• OTHER: Spellbinders Platinum Die Cutting Machine, Spellbinders Tool ‘n One, Scrapbook Adhesives Adhesive Sheets, White Fun Foam, MISTI, Glue