Embellish Magazine: Circles Color Trends Challenge

Gonna play along with the current Embellish Challenge - and I've got lots to share. I hope you'll stick around for it!

The challenge is to use circles in the design along with the challenge colors of red, brown, white and green.

For my cards I got really inky. Matter of fact, these cards are all stamps...from the rooty to the tooty. 

I went with this super mod look and I am loving every bit of it! 

Now, you know how I roll. One card often turns into a set of cards...and that's exactly what happened here.  I just stamped the same design with different colors. 

If you're interested in how these cards came together, here's a little step-by-step on how I stamped these out:

My first tip for designing cards like this is to reorganize your stamps. Since I have such a penchant for graphic patterns and building designs, I have reorganized my stamps so that all of my circle stamps are together.

You'd be shocked to find out which unsuspecting stamp sets have little gems like these. And unless I store them in one place, I forget all about them and they never get used. 

From my PTI stash, I've hunted down circles of all sizes from some of these sets: Honey Bees, Dot Spot, Simply Stationery, Forest Friends, Christmas Friends, Up, Up & Away, Take a Bough and Fruitful. 

I store these stamps in size order, from biggest to teensiest on an acetate sheet. 

Of course, depending on how you use your stamps, this approach may not work for you. For me though, and my style of cardmaking, this is a great solution that really helps me access all the stamps I might need for a given design or pattern.

To design this particular set of cards, I started by stamping the branch image from Falling Leaves and traced a circle die to provide a guide for stamping the "tree."

Next, I got inky - starting with the biggest circles...

then smaller circles...

and even smaller circles...

and smaller...

then some teensy little dots!

Last, I erased the pencil line, stamped the bird image from Christmas Friends and added a sentiment from Take a Bough!

I hope the photos are helpful and it all makes sense! 

Thanks for stopping by for some Damask Love!

Supplies

Stamps: PTI (Assorted circles stamps {see above}, Christmas Friends{bird image}, Take a Bough {sentiment}, Falling Leaves {tree trunk image}

Ink: Impress (Red Current, Chocolate, Silver Lilac, Capri, Mojito)

Paper: 90lb watercolor paper, PTI (Smokey Shadow)