Background builders

This week in the evenings I've been busy making (again!) some more vintage Scandinavian Christmas cards as well as making my own stamped backgrounds using my inks and stamps. This is such fun! I'm thoroughly enjoying myself at the card making paper production. There's a new trend in the stamping world - a new type of stamps sometimes called "background builders" or "backgrounders" - these are sets of stamps coordinated in style/theme that are used to build your own scenery on a card. They allow for the personalization of a card - you choose where and how to stamp and in what order and how much. So I've had those 4 gorgeous stamps sets with the Nordic theme from The Waltzing Mouse Stamps and the knitted pattern stamps from  WPlus9 Studio Design and it was a perfect moment to put those stamps into practice. So this week I've been stamping these:

I experimented with various colours and shades. By accident, using a thick chalky ink that didn't stamp too crisp, I discovered how to achieve a shaded knitted pattern by stamping two patterns - one on top of  the other. One fills it with a faded colour, the other gives it a defining outline. I thought the coffee brown knitted pattern will look cosy and warm on my cards ;) I really look forward to making cards with these impressions. 

I was very pleased with how these images came out on card as it can be tricky to get a good even impression from the big-sized stamps. I had to use super long acrylic blocks for these borders. I also used some stamping advice from the stamping expert The Waltzing Mouse website and it did work for me this time. I'm going to cut those papers up into smaller backgrounds and perhaps use some cutting dies and punches on them. The thing I love about those background builders is that there are so many possibilities with these stamps. You can make monochromatic patterns as well as multicoloured ones. You can use the papers as backgrounds, punch various shapes out of them or simply cut them up into decorative borders or create your own gift wraps too!