Hello everyone! I am thrilled to be guesting on the Scrapbook and Cards Today blog for their Card Cafe feature!

I wanted to showcase some of my favorite Simon Says Stamp products in my cards for today, all of which feature a patterned stamping technique centered around Simon’s Brushstroke Messages set. Creating patterns with stamps is a really unique and fun way to get more life out of your supplies; there are so many ways you can customize your patterns to make them one-of-a-kind!

The first brushstroke pattern I created is stamped in an “ombrè” style. An ombrè is a gradation of color tones; in this particular case I used yellow, green and purple to make an ombrè. The ink colors used in this pattern were Duckling, Willow, Hydrangea and Deep Purple.

The flowers that are stamped over the ombrè pattern are from Simon’s Bouquet of Thanks set. I white heat embossed them over the brushstrokes and then partially die cut the bouquet so that I could pop it up off the card.

There is a sentiment heat embossed onto a strip of green cardstock, which is from Simon’s Forever Friends stamp set. You’ll also notice the tears on either end of the sentiment strip; I intentionally ripped the ends to emulate the imperfect brushstrokes. Little details like this make a card more interesting! For an embellishment, I tied a bit of twine around the bottom of the card. As a bonus idea for creating patterns, you can also compliment patterns with your card base! I used a brushstroke image and stamped it randomly across my purple card base in embossing ink and a purple ink. It is a subtle feature but really looks nice paired with the main brushstroke images in this card.


Supplies Used: Stamps (Simon Says Stamp), Dies (Simon Says Stamp, Memory Box), Inks (Simon Says Stamp), Embellishments (American Crafts), Embossing Powder (Ranger), Tools (Sizzix, Wagner, My Sweet Petunia), Adhesives (Art Quest, ThermoWeb, Scotch 3M), Cardstocks (Simon Says Stamp, Lawn Fawn).

My second pattern is an all-over design with four colors; Pink Diamond, Mountain Mist, Sunkissed and Limestone. All of the inks are from Altenew. As I stamped the brushstroke images, I made sure to overlap each block of color; this ensures that there are no large areas of
white in the design that would be a distraction.

Over the brushstroke pattern, I stamped images from Simon’s Look for the Miracles set in the same colors I used for the background. To
create the ombrè look of the images I used my MISTI tool and selectively inked different portions of each image with different colors. The greeting is also stamped with the Look for the Miracles, paired with a supporting sentiment from You Got This.

Supplies Used: Stamps (Simon Says Stamp), Dies (Memory Box), Inks (Altenew, Simon Says Stamp), Cardstocks (Simon Says Stamp), Tools (My Sweet Petunia, Sizzix, Wagner), Adhesives (ThermoWeb, Art Quest), Embossing Powder (Hero Arts), Embellishments (American Crafts).

Another fun way to create a pattern is to place your images along an edge of your card; in this case, I’ve stamped the brushstroke across the top edge. The color combination I used in this card was Ruby Red, Mountain Mist and Sunkissed; all of the inks are from Altenew. As I stamped the brushstroke images onto the card, I was careful to leave space towards the bottom so that I could also add a sentiment. I was also mindful to rotate the brushstroke around so that I used both ends of the stamp; this gave some variation to the brushstrokes.

Once the border was finished, I used the same ink colors to stamp the sentiment along the bottom right of the card; the greetings are from the Big Words, Brushstroke Messages and You Got This stamp sets. To embellish everything, I covered over the heart with Glossy Accents and tied some twine across the top. The color scheme in this card makes it perfect for giving to pretty much anyone, which can be a handy style of card to have in your stash.

Supplies Used: Stamps (Simon Says Stamp), Dies (Memory Box), Inks (Altenew), Embellishments (American Crafts), Tools (My Sweet Petunia), Adhesives (ThermoWeb), Cardstocks (Simon Says Stamp, Lawn Fawn).

My final stamped pattern features diagonal stripes; which is a fun way to add movement to a card design. I stamped the stripes with Pink Diamond, Mountain Mist and Rocky Shores; all inks are from Altenew. The next step was to stamp strings for the snowflakes I had cut using a few Simon snowflake dies. The strings are stamped from the On a String set from Simon using Evening Gray ink from Altenew.

The snowflakes are created using the Snow Flurries, Anna, Marissa and Ashlynn dies and white cardstock. I cut each snowflake 3 times, layered them together and then covered each one with Hero Arts’ Sparkle Embossing Powder. Before adhering the snowflakes to the striped background, I trimmed the panel down with the Pretty Pink Posh Stitched Borders 3 die set. Then I popped the panel up off of a cream
card base and adhered the snowflakes at the end of each stamped string.


I finished off the card with a few sentiments; one cut using the Simon Says Stamp Handlettered Greetings die set and the other stamped with their Frozen Fractals stamp set. I also adhered a bunch of jewels from Lucy’s Cards Bridal mix. This card is so soft and pretty… a perfect way to thank someone during the wintertime!

Supplies Used: Stamps (Simon Says Stamp), Dies (Simon Says Stamp, Memory Box, Pretty Pink Posh), Inks (Altenew, Simon Says Stamp), Embossing Powders (Hero Arts, Ranger), Embellishments (Little Things by Lucy’s Cards), Tools (Sizzix, Wagner), Adhesives (ThermoWeb,
Scotch, Art Quest), Cardstocks (Simon Says Stamp).

A big thank you to Scrapbook & Cards Today for letting me guest on their blog today! And thank YOU for visiting me; I will see you again very soon with another video to share!