Stampin’ Fancy Friday – Colors Challenge

Hello Friends and welcome to a new Stampin’ Fancy Friday. Our May theme is a color challenge. We can use any of the Stampin’ Up!’s colors including old, existing, or new. The goal is to come up with some great combinations to inspire your paper crafting!

To see all the designers’ projects using this month’s theme, keep an eye on the Stampin’ Fancy Friday Facebook and Instagram pages. We’d also love to see any of your projects using our theme! Be sure to tag them with @stampinfancyfriday so we can find and admire them!

I’m going to a wedding later this month for one of my daughter’s childhood best friends. So I wanted to make her a very special card. I stamped the floral images with the Simply Beautiful Bundle using a combination of Cherry Cobbler and Mossy Meadow ink on Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper and then watercolored them with Cherry Cobbler, Barely Blush, Mossy Meadow, and Old Olive ink. So … obviously watercoloring over water-based inks makes the ink smear. But for this card, I was going for an artistic, messy look, so I was OK with that. I also tried not to get the paper too wet to minimize the smearing. Also, because Barely Blush is such a light color, I found it a lot easier to use the ink refill to add a few drops to the lid of my ink pad for more concentrated color.

Did you notice the pretty frames in the background? They are from the new Phrases & Frames Impressions and they are special because they’re made for use with the new Impressions Plate. I got to try one of these special dies during convention in March and thought they were really cool. So I bought a set and the plate. To use the dies, it’s important to first liberally spritz the cardstock with water. Then, cut the cardstock like normal but keep the cardstock inside the die. Then, flip the die and cardstock over so the cardstock is on top. Run the die and cardstock through the Cut & Emboss Machine one more time with the Impression Plate (instructions that come with the plate show you the right sandwich.) The more you spritz the paper in the beginning, the more pronounced the embossing becomes. It’s beautiful! These dies are marked in the catalog with a title of “Impressions.”.

In the background, used a Blending Brush to add lots of Barely Blush ink and then I splattered it with water. I also added more splatter with both Barely Blush and Cherry Cobbler Stampin’ Bends Markers.

I heat embossed the Simply Beautiful sentiment in gold and then added a sentiment on the inside from the Sending Salutations Stamp Set. There’s also another embossing frame inside. The cool thing about those dies is that they also cut the inside piece, so I could insert the Basic White Cardstock.

I hope this card and color combination inspires you. Have a wonderful and creative day!

Purchase products from my online store to qualify to receive free exclusive project tutorials. This month’s PDF includes 12 tutorials designed by my demonstrator friends and I to inspire your paper crafting! The projects feature products from the May-August 2026 Catalog and current Online Exclusives. Enjoy!