Work Out Wednesday :: Scribble Flowers

So Miss Banana Frog (Bev, but it's funnier to imagine her with a sash, crown and a bouquet of bejeweled frogs and fruit) challenges me to come up with something weekly.  I figure if I can do Orange Wednesdays weekly, then I could do some sort of stamping Wednesday weekly, but that's not catchy enough.  No, no, no.  See, I also want to imply that what we are doing is good for us.  That in some small way, stamping could even be...healthy.  Like all that picking up the block-putting down the block-picking up the block could be considered...exercise.  And so Work Out Wednesdays was born.

And although Miss Banana Frog was really in favour of the cheesy catchy WOW name, she told me stamping wasn't really exercise.  I was devastated.  I mean, I even stamp standing up!  Surely that's exercise!  But apparently it's not.  Undaunted, I declared we can give our stamps a workout!  So here goes -- whether you declare this a weekly exercise for your stamps, your brain or your body, I just hope you'll join with me for a little craftiness every Wednesday here on the FrogBlog!

Each Wednesday we're going to give one set of Banana Frog stamps a quick and easy workout.  I wanted to start with the set that has been my favourite since the very beginning of the frog -- Scribble Flowers.  I use this stamp so much!  It features on pretty much every last minute card I've made in the past couple years and every non-Christmas gift tag too.  It's definitely a staple.  If you've got it, dust it off today.  If you don't...well, that's what shopping is for, of course!

Do you remember those workout shows in the 80s where they had three different levels of participant on different platforms on the screen?  The girl at the front on the tallest platform would be exercising her socks off while the poor guy in the back did his best to keep upright during his new exercise regime, plus there would be one normal type person in the middle?  Well this is nothing like that and yet totally inspired by it.  Because each week we're going to start with a tag, then move up to a card and then onto a layout!  But of course, making a tag doesn't mean you're having trouble with the workout so really it's a terrible, terrible comparison.  But remembering the image made me laugh so I had to share it with you.  Keep in mind that the image is funnier if you picture it in the correct clothing and set design of 1982: lots of leg warmers, velour, headbands and a strange mix of earthtones and purples on the wall in big geometric shapes.  Okay, if it's not funny by now it's not going to be, so one we go.

The reason I love Scribble Flowers is because the flower design looks great with one super easy trick: stamp off the edge of the page or tag.  The set has two sizes, so you can vary it up a bit too which helps.  If you've never tried placing the design off the edge it will make all the difference to the details of the design so give it a shot.  This is just a regular mailing tag stamped with dark brown dye ink (remember, dye is the one that dries fast) plus a scrap from a vintage book page with some red pigment ink around the edges, topped with part of a label, a chipboard letter, a button and a straight pin.  Tie it up with some red ribbon and it's all done faster than you can say 'warm up'!

You can start a little basket to keep your WOW tags, ready for gift wrapping a present or you can stick them straight to work on a layout.  8.5x11 pages don't need much more than a tag and some extra paper scraps to finish the page, so this is great for those random photos that you have sitting on your scrapping table in need of a home.  Simple is good.  In my world anyway.

Okay, moving on with our workout!  One of the ways to make your workout productive is to keep going with the same supplies for all three projects.  I say it makes you more productive.  What I really mean is if we use it all, we don't have to clean it up.  And that's what I really love.  So today we are working the red + brown combination and two pages from an old rescued book. 

The second trick that I use with my scribbles is to cut out the flowers.  So stamp away on white cardstock, then cut them out.  You don't have to be precise and trust me, you don't have to do this with a craft knife.  The only thing I have ever cut with a craft knife is myself, so I have a severe phobia of the things.  Scissors.  Scissors will be fine.  Cut out some stamped flowers and layer them with some more paper scraps until you like them.  Put the big one on a pop dot.  Everybody loves pop dots, right?  Okay, maybe I get too enthusiastic sometimes but I do like using things that have been in my stash like for-ever.  That blossom might just count as that too.  I stuck all this on a corrugated card because that's what I had handy, but go for whatever you have sitting there in your stash.  Plain brown, red, white or cream will all work and even sage green looks pretty cool with all this red and brown.  And somehow I have about twenty card blanks in sage green and I'm not even sure where they came from.  I think I bought two and they multiplied.  Seriously.

And now the real stretch of today's workout will be a breeze!  Here's the 12x12 page.  Same colour scheme and basic supplies.  Once I had the basics down I added a few other bits and pieces to stretch the layout to be a bit different than what we made so far...so I added the velvet ribbon and the Fanciful stamps, then stitched a frame around it all with my sewing machine.  I'll warn you now that you'll see plenty of photos from this wedding in my layouts for WOW and assorted other things at the moment, but if you can't be surprised that I took a ton of photos that day!  This is just the proof that I really am scrapping them.  I've still got a big stack, so Work Out Wednesdays can help me with that too -- I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with a stack of unscrappeds that need to go somewhere soon!

Now it's your turn: do as much of the workout as you like.  Copy it exactly (that's totally fine and great as a warm up to a full day of scrapping!) or change it up to make it your own!  If you do the workout, make sure to comment here and tell us about it.  If you post it on your blog or in a gallery, give us a link so we can check you out and say hello!

See you next week for a whole new workout!

Love and glitter,
Shimelle.~*

Comments

[SmilynStef]

Absolutely fabulous ... I've got to go check out these stamps ... I particularly love the corrugated card.

[tori]

fantastic cards!

[Julie]

Oooh! I've got these stamps. Love them. Always pleased to see new ideas for them. Thanks.