Like It Love It Gotta Have it Challenge for January

Well, we had a little time off on the swaps for Paper Wishes, and I'm really glad - I over-committed myself in October and November and didn't know how I was going to get it all done. So welcome to getting ready for a new year! This will be posted on the Paper Wishes site on December 15 but it is for January so put your thinking caps on, but you can wait until January to dig in and create something fabulous!

What I'd like to introduce to you today is a technique I've seen in several magazines, and Gina K had a version of it on her videos - this is my first time trying it. Basically you stamp an image twice - once on one color background and with a complementary ink and embossing powder, then you stamp it again in reverse. Here I'm stamping white on red, and red on white.

The trick to this is being sure your image is exactly placed in the same place on both pieces of cardstock. If you have a stamp positioner, this is the time to use it! Unfortunately, this is one little gadget I have yet to acquire. So, I chose the size of my paper not too much bigger than the image so I could just center the image and hopefully all would come out alright and it did!

Here are my two images stamped on 5" x 5" squares. The first is using a white embossing powder on a dark red cardstock. The second I had some tensil embossing powder and decided to try using a glittered cardstock. I wasn't sure how the image would stamp on this type of paper, but it did great! So the glitter and tensil adds a little sparkle as well!

Then, I cut each image into 1" strips. When applying the strips to your base, you just alternate the pieces - one from the white image and one from the red image. The cool thing about this technique is you end up with two cards!

Like It

I cut mine into 5 pieces, but you can do just 2 - half and half. In fact I have an old card that does just this! Notice how the designer of this card made it extra interesting by using reverse colors on the background, and adding a dark border!

Not a stamper? Try this with two patterned papers - you can often find a single pattern printed in several colorways - see if you can match them up!

Love It

Try the 1" strips like I did

Gotta Have It

You could do more, smaller strips, or even cut them up and do a checkerboard pattern. You could even fussy-cut around the image and replace one side with the other instead of using straight cuts. Try this and see what you can come up with!

Happy New Year Everyone!