Concord & 9th Faith and Love

Hi Folks! I've got a TRUCK LOAD of cards to share with you using the new Concord & 9th sets Faith and Love and Lily. These sets were initially meant for Bible Journaling, but as you'll see they are perfectly at home on the front of a card. I was only supposed to create 1 or 2 cards from these sets, but I was having so much fun, loved the results, and could not leave the craft room ... for a few days, hahaha! One night I had even climbed into bed, and then hoped out a few minutes later to try out another idea. Any stamp set that has me creating from 2:00-4:00 in the morning is a winner in my book!

But enough chatting, let's get started, shall we? We've got a lot to get through today!

This is actually the card I hoped out of bed for : ) I just love all the sketchy words in Faith and Love, and how they look in the actual stamp packaging, so I wanted to replicate that on a card. I stamped the lily from Lily, and then made a mask so I could stamp all those words in the background of this one layer card.

You can see the progression of how this card came about once the lily and words were stamped. I first sponged around the lily with green, which was more to make the lily white through contrast, versus making the background green, but the words were too prominent and distracting. So I inked the entire card in blues and greens. The words were still demanding more attention than I wanted to give them, so I added some water spatters and sequins.

This card uses the same concept of stamping/coloring the lily, masking it, and inking around the mask to make it stand out. Instead of using the solid, center stamp to color in the lilies, I used my Zig Clear Color markers and flicked the brush from the center of each petal to the end. No watercoloring at all here, just the straight marker to give it a more stylized look.

Very similar card, but instead of sponging the background, I left it white and drew a border around the card. Also changed the sentiment (there are so many to choose from, you'll always have something different!)

Using only the Zig watercolor brush to color the lilies made things go a lot faster, so I ended up making a few more of these.

Here's another shot of a card coming together. I started with choosing and arranging the words for my sentiment, and thought it wasn't half-bad with just the black text on a white base. But I decided to add a background, in pink, with the fern and spatter stamps. Also not bad. Inking the edges really helped put more focus on the message. And finally ...

I inked each of the stamps in a different color, and then, with the stamps still laid out on my misti, shifted my card base to the right a touch before stamping again. This gives the text color and helps it stand out a little more. 

So in love with being able to make longer sentiments that say more than "happy birthday" or "thank you." I think it makes the card more unique, which is kind of the whole point in making your own cards. This has the feel of subway art, and is bordered with a combination of stamps, also from the Faith and Love set. You could put the flowers in all four corners, only one corner, or opposing corners like I have here. Then whatever is left you stamp with the line and plain corner stamp.

Here's another version in pink. Other stamps from this set include the dotted arrow underneath "follow" and the cute heart. The text "heart" is borrowed from the You Are Here set.

Here's what my Misti looked like. There is only one set of corners and lines, so after stamping the first time I removed all the words, turned the card panel around 180 degrees, and then stamped the corners/line in the other direction to perfectly frame the sentiment. You'll also see the were a few stamps that had to be on regular blocks, mostly because they needed to go too close to the other words. And, I was still in the process of making the previous card, so you'll see that all laid out on the Misti as well. My Misti sure got a lot of traffic that day!

Here is the set of cards, with an additional yellow/orange flowered card on the right. You would not believe, but since I had everything laid out on the Misti, I went ahead and made 9 MORE panels. Why not, right?

Changing the colors in the flowers, and the patterned paper underneath, makes it easy to give each card its own flavor. 

Wow, that was a lot of cards to get through; so happy you made it to the end! Next Monday I'll be showcasing a different set from Concord & 9th so be sure to stop back. Thanks so much!

-Kelly

The products featured in this post can be found through the following links. These are affiliate links, which simply means if you decide to make a purchase I will receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you. This helps me justify spending so much time and money on this wonderful hobby of ours to my hubby : )