CHF 12 Weeks of Summer Fling Blog Hop - Week 1

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Cornish Heritage Farms 12 Weeks of Summer Fling Blog Hop!!  If you've just hopped from Laura's blog, the next one is Lisa's.  If you've just blurfed into the hop, you may want to check out the CHF Be Creative Blog, so that you can have lots more chances to win.  But it really doesn't matter, you can start anywhere. 

What's the 12 Weeks of Summer Fling? Each week will feature one of the rubber stamp lines at CHF with a blog hop and special gallery showing new samples using stamps from that line. The featured line will also be on sale for the week so it's definitely the time to add to your collection. :)  Two Gift Certificates will be awarded to 2 lucky winners who successfully follow the blog hop and comment as they go in the time allotted. This is not a race. All Blog Hops will start from the CHF Be Creative Blog on a Monday, comments must be made before midnight EST on the Thursday of that week, and winners will be announced on that Friday.

First prize is a $20 CHF Gift Certificate and 2nd Prize is a $10 Gift Certificate, which will be emailed to the winning participants!!

If you upload a qualifying card (using the featured week’s stamp line) to the CHF special gallery for that week, you will be eligible for the Design Team’s Favorite prize which will be a rubber stamp/stamp set of your choice up to the value of $16.99. The deadline for uploading cards for the prize will also be Thursdays at midnight.

This week we are featuring Cornish Heritage Farms' Backgrounder Stamps.  That means that for this week only (offer ends Thursday June 10th, 2010 and is for online orders only) all Backgrounders are on sale at 25% off!

So.... when is a Backgrounder more than a background?  When it can be the star of the show, of course!!  For my card (above) I've used two backgrounders: the gorgeous "Toile" Backgrounder for the featured image, and the "French Script" Backgrounder as the.... well,.... background!  I've kept the color scheme monochromatic, to give the card a vintage tapestry feel.  The "Birthday Wishes" sentiment is from Kim Hughes' Silhouette Blooms II set.

If you'd like a little "how-to" for this card:  I inked up the main image of the mother and son from the Toile Backgrounder, stamped it in Memento's Blue Danube on Simply Smooth Vanilla cardstock, and cut it out with Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four.  I had been careful not to ink up the leaves around the mother's head, but then thought the upper right looked a little bare.  So, I inked up some of the flora from the backgrounder in Memento's Summer Sky ink, and placed my image on the inked stamp (so that I knew what I would be getting) and pressed it down with scrap paper.  I used the same technique for the sentiment.... stamped it in Blue Danube, then inked up a portion of the Toile backgrounder with Summer Sky, and pressed the sentiment onto the stamp.  For the background, I first inked up only the top portion of the Toile Backgrounder and stamped it on the left-hand side of a panel made with Simply Linen ivory cardstock (I wanted to get a fabric texture).  Before cleaning the stamp, I stamped again on a piece of scrap paper and used it to make a mask.  I masked off the flowers on my card, and stamped the French Script Backgrounder in Summer Sky twice - once over the top of the flowers, and then moved it to the right to fill in the right-hand side of the card.  I just eyeballed this - I knew the image panel would cover up any misalignment.  I've added some crinkled seam binding from Blue Bird Lane's Etsy shop, some blue rhinestones from Michael's (a.k.a. generic bling!) and a few Prima flowers.

There are lots of great Backgrounder stamps at the store, and you can get them cling-mounted or wood mounted.  Need ideas?  Check out the new 12 Weeks of Summer Fling Gallery of backgrounders.  I hope you have a chance to play along with the Design Team.... have fun and good luck!!