We were at Steamboat Lake for a week and watched as the colors were changing!  It was glorious!  The first picture is Pearl lake, another beautiful lake north of Steamboat Springs. The picture captured the various colors and the reflection in the lake.

You must have had your daughter’s fancy camera!

No, Sal, just an iphone on a beautiful day!

Right before we left for camping I purchased a Colorado Stamp and die set ‘Colorful Colorado’ made by Memory Box and another Colorado stamp set, ‘Greetings from Colorado’ at Simple Pleasures in Colorado Springs. It is a design by Ann Corbiere-Scott. The store is a stamp and scrapbook store with an entire section of the store dedicated to products for each state.  They market many of the major stamp and die companies’ products  and have an amazing stock of scrapbook and card making paper.

ooohhhh, time for a field trip.  Let’s see the card you made with what you bought!

Give yourself lots of time when you go to this store!

For the card, I had fun doing sunsets using sponging in different colors.  Paul liked this sunset best which used Orchid Oasis for the blue.

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My favorite was this sunset with the darker Pacific Point ink for the blue.  I tried Marina Mist for ink sponging as well but it wasn’t much different than Pacific Point.  Let’s take a vote…… which do you like best?

This is a picture of a Colorado sunset taken at Ridgway State Park in June.  I talked Paul into taking us out on the boat to sit in the middle of the lake and watch the sunset.

The following picture is of columbines at Yankee Boy Basin outside of Ouray, Colorado.

I think you got the color of the columbine perfect.  What did you use?

I used Copic marker BV00 which is close to Orchid Oasis.

Can you see the Kissing Camels (Garden of the Gods) in this stamp collage of Colorado?

The stamp set came with the die to cut out the the aspen frame, the mountain and the pinecones.  The columbine was in the other set and was fussy cut.  The pine bough came from the Poinsetta Petals Stampin’ Up! set with Poinsettia dies.

The hug greeting is the Limited Edition Stampin’ Up! stamp set and the Designer Series Paper (DSP) is birch paper from years ago in Stampin’ Up!

The die does not need to be cut apart.  If the die is left intact, all the leaf and pinecone shapes will be cut out when you die cut the frame but you can easily stamp them afterwards.  I stamped the leaves in Memento Black and the pinecones in Chocolate Chip.

One pointer for anyone who has this set – the set is photopolymer and the large aspen frame can stretch and not be perfect for the die which cuts it out.

I can guess how you found that out!

True, Sal, and to remedy this situation I used my Stamparatus and mounted the aspen stamp on the plate and then placed the die on the stamp to check that nothing was stretched out of the shape of the die, adjusting the stamp where necessary.  This could work with any dies you have that have thin images to cut that might not stamp correctly if the stamp is stretched.

The other cool thing I found with the aspen frame is by stamping the frame on the piece of basic white that I was going to sponge and then popping up the die cut frame on top of the stamped image with white foam adhesive strips (don’t use dimensionals), I achieved a 3D effect for the tree.

I can see that in the right side on the first picture.  

Recipe

• Base: Very Vanilla, 5 1/2 X 8 1/2 scored at 4 1/4
• Layer: Birch Bark DSP,  5 1/4 X 4
• Inside Bottom Strip:  Birch Bark DSP, 1 X 4
• Background Layer: Basic White, 5 X 3 3/4; stamp the frame in Chocolate Chip, then fussy cut around the outer edges of frame.
  • Sponge the sunset in Pacific Point, then Daffodil Delight, Crushed Curry, and ending with Calypso Coral.
  • The mountain will be die cut when you cut the aspen frame, then ink the mountain stamp with Memento Black, wipe off the black ring around the sun with a wet wipe (or finger), or mask the black ring before you stamp.  Fussy cut the tiny white around the mountains that the die will leave, then color the mountains with Copics B24, or BV00, and the sun in Y06 or Daffodil Delight. Mount directly to your background.
  • Stamp the ‘Hugs from’ and ‘Colorful Colorado’ in Versa Mark, then heat emboss with white embossing powder – note – be sure the blue of your sunset comes down far enough to give a good background for Colorful Colorado or it will get lost in the yellows.
• Aspen Frame: Basic White, 5 X 3 3/4,  Stamp in Chocolate Chip, die cut and then use a marker to color any white on the edges so you can achieve a 3D look with the background layer.
• Leaves:  Stamp your cut out images in Memento Black and color with YG17 for green and Y13 for the tips. Note the placement on the pictures.
• Pine Bough:  Stamp in Garden Green using the Poinsetta Petals stamp set and die cut with the Poinsettia Die. Cut the image apart to layer the small bough under the large bough.  Top with a little pine cone stamped in Chocolate Chip.
• Columbine:  Stamp image in Memento Black and color outside with BV00, or Orchid Oasis, and heat emboss the middle with Crushed Curry embossing powder. Pop up with a dimensional over the largest part of the mountain.

The ‘Greetings from Colorado’ set has a fun stamp for the back of your card that says ‘handmade in Colorado’.

May we see a picture of these stamp sets since they are so unique?

Of course, Sal!

Click on Little Sal in the computer to go to the Simple Pleasures stamp shop. They are happy to ship.  Tell them I sent you!

SAL,  Share A Love

Karen

For my copic marker users and myself to remember what I used.

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