Stampin Up Seasonal Branches & A New Way To Ink Stamps

Welcome stampers! I hope you are doing well, and I’m glad to have you visiting today. Today I want to share a fun technique I’ve been playing around with, in addition to some new products coming May 2. These cards feature the Stampin Up Seasonal Branches stamp set, plus a technique for inking stamps with blending brushes. I’ll share details below, but let me quickly highlight the retiring products that will soon be gone!

The retiring products from our Annual and Mini Catalogs have been announced, and all are available while supplies last. Many are available at discounts up to 60% off! I highlighted some of my favorite items in this blog post, so take a look there or click here to shop the sale.

Now let’s take a look at today’s projects!

Click to see a new way to ink your stamps! I'm not using the stamp on an ink pad, and the results are amazing. Try this technique yourself! Samples feature Stampin Up Seasonal Branches

Stampin Up Seasonal Branches

Here you can see the lovely stamps I used on the cards shown below. This set also has a coordinating die set, but I did not use them on these three simple cards. This is a great set to use for different seasons throughout the year.

A New Way To Ink Your Stamps

The technique I’m showing today is simple – instead of inking your stamp on an ink pad, use a small blending brush to pick up some ink and apply it to the stamp. This yields a softer result when stamping, plus you get color variation and can mix colors.

Let me share quickly why I used Mini Blending Brushes instead of my regular, larger blending brushes.

Mini Blending Brushes

Mini blending brushes are helpful for this technique because they have a smaller area to which they apply ink. This allows me to apply different colors in small areas to the stamp, such as you’ll see on the blue floral card. The same is true when applying ink directly to the card, which I did on the fall leaf card.

Next let’s look at the card samples

Spring Buds

For this card I applied Moody Mauve ink to the bud stamp with a mini blending brush. I stamped it, then added some darker buds with another stamp in the set.

Summer Flowers

For this card I mounted the floral stamp to my Stamparatus. I applied Moody Mauve ink to a few areas, then stamped. Then I added Bojo Blue ink to a few areas and stamped again. I love the mixed color result.

Fall Leaves

For this card I inked the leaf stamp using my mini blending brushes with one color at a time. I did this several times and used three colors of ink including Pebbled Path, Wild Wheat and Copper Clay. Then I applied ink directly to the card using my small brushes to fill in some color on the leaves.