Light of the World

My oldest son came down with one of those icky stomach bugs, so we had to postpone our trip to Baltimore for a few weeks. The good news is the time I spent on extra laundry and steam cleaning carpets was rewarded with a little bit of unexpected stamping time last night and today.

The first stamp release from Our Daily Bread Designs, called Light of the World, came yesterday. This card didn't turn out exactly like the vision in my head (which was a little too big for my stamping ability!), but I do still like it. I had not done one of the shadow box cards before. I also tried a new-to-me technique, which is the salted background. SCS has some great tutorials on both. The links will take you right to those tutorials. For the salted background, I painted watercolor paper with Night of Navy and Bordering Blue reinkers, sprinkled with table salt, spritzed with water, and then dried it with a heat tool. I brushed off the dried up salt before stamping the Bible verse in Jet Black Staz-On. I drew inspiration for my card from this card that Laurie Schmidlin made using the same stamp set.

Tip: I cut my ovals with the Creative Memories cutting system. This cutting system (and most, it seems) only cuts mats in 1/8" increments. I much prefer the narrower 1/16" increment. I read this little tip on someone's blog several months ago (I wish I could remember whose so I could give credit). In this case, where you're cutting out a hole, cut your two inside layers the same size (if you're not cutting out a frame, but matting an image instead, you'll cut your two outside layers the same size). For the middle layer (white here) use scissors to trim away just a tiny amount. Of course, it will be uneven when it is hand-cut, so take the edge distresser and rough it up a bit. Now it's supposed to be messy, so the unevenness isn't a problem.

So, this is my first-ever offical design team creation. Isn't that fun?

Now, last but not least, would you like to win this stamp set? Check out the blog candy celebration, which is in the post right below!

Stamps: Light of the World (by Our Daily Bread Designs)
Paper: watercolor paper, Night of Navy, Bordering Blue, Whisper White
Ink: Night of Navy, Bordering Blue, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, So Saffron, Always Artichoke, Jet Black Staz-On
Accessories: aqua painter, table salt, water spritzer, paper piercer, sponge daubers, distressing tool, silver brads, corner rounder punch, pretties kit, three for you punch, 1/4" punch