stampin' on flowers!

over the weekend i had occasion to visit lesley langdon's blog, challenge me lesley THREE TIMES (once for each of the *fab* CAARDVARKS' micro challenge cards she made!) and i could not help but notice and marvel at the way she had stamped on a prima paper flower! i confess, such an idea had never occurred to me...but of course as soon as i saw it i was kicking myself: *WHY* hadn't it occurred to me??! that is brilliant! a feverish flurry of flowery stamping ensued. here are some of the fruits of that experimentation:

my conclusions: dye-based ink works better than pigment; the flatter the flower, the better the image transfers; paper flowers take ink slightly better than fabric ones...which can become very slightly blurry; 7 gypsies pre-inked stamps work just fine & are easily positioned; the more contrast between ink color and flower color the better it shows up; a medium sized stamp transfers better than a really big all-over image b/c of the uneven surface. on a personal note: i think i like the allover patterns the best, especially the crackle effect, the wood grain and the leopard spots!

one last tiny (and ultra-specific) tip: see this "inkblots" stamp by DOTS? it's cute, right?

...until you stamp it in RED, and then you've got...

...uh-huh...

blood splatter!!! (lol!)

...hmmm...i think we'd better save that one for halloween!

UPDATE: lesley has actually written a fantastic tutorial on altering flowers via stamping (& other cool ways) that you DEFINITELY want to read! you can find it here.