It's All Cut and Die: Stamping with Dies with Craftin Desert Divas

Good morning all!! Today I have a bit of a tutorial style post for you. It's all about get more use out of your dies by creating stamps with them!! Isn't that awesome? I mean think of the possibilities!

Craftin Desert Divas has some amazing die sets, especially scene building dies, which work excellent for this technique! I'm using the Island Dies for my project today.

I started by cutting all the dies out of some inexpensive white fun foam. I order mine from Amazon.

This stuff die cuts like a dream! To make these pieces into "stamps", I simply applied some tape runner adhesive to the foam and attached to a clear block.

Note: this will leave residue on your blocks but it cleans they clean up well with a bit of rubbing alcohol!!

I had a little scene planned out in my mind before I started so I knew I needed some masks.

I used stamping mask paper from Inkadinkadoo but in all honesty, these did not work!! I'll explain why later!

I used the Inside Scalloped Rectangle Dies for the backdrop of my scene...I LOVE this die set!! Now, I should have used a watercolour paper or even a Bristol Smooth paper but I used regular white cardstock, which I never get great blending results on, you'll see that later and how I fixed my boo-boo!

Okay, let's see the stamping!! I used a combination of dye ink and Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Inks. they both worked great. Something to keep in mind, I found I had to ink these a lot to get them saturated so they would stamp solidly.

This was inked up only once. It's pretty good but splotchy. I found by adding ink with a sponge dauber, you could get great two toned effects.

After I had my stamping completed, I applied my masks. I also cut two of the Stitched Scallop Border Dies out of masking paper. One looks like waves, the other clouds!

Now this is where I had trouble with those masks!! Because I used the Distress Oxides, which take longer to dry than dye inks, my masks would not stick!!! So instead of crisp lines, I got more of a smudgy look. Oh well, live and learn and I think it turned out all right in the end :)

Remember when I said I should have used watercolour or Bristol?? This is why..

A big 'ol blob of ink, something that could not be blended out. You may also notice that some of the stamping is not great. This is an easy fix. Because the "stamps" are complete solid images, it is very easy to re-stamp, which is what I did.

I partially die cut a section from the Picture Frame Die to give me a small sentiment strip. I found the perfect sentiment in the Tickled Pink stamp set.

And see? My ink blended boo-boo is gone!!

Because this was a very "flat" card, I gave it some dimension by cutting some of the seashells and coconuts from the die set out of white cardstock and blending some ink on them. These, I added with some foam adhesive squares.

You can see I added a bit of detail with a white Gelly Roll pen and some clear Wink of Stella!

Now, I actually have a bonus card to share. Once I started this technique, it was hard to stop! Here I used one of the Party Border Dies to create a background!

This was quick and easy! I used the same die cut foam stamp for all the stamping. Before switching colours, I simple wiped the stamp with a scrap piece of paper. I was really surprised that there was no ink transfer!! I used the Happy Die and Happy Sentiments stamp set for the sentiment!

Thank you so much for reading this entire post!! I hope you found some inspiration and will take a look through your stash to see what you can create a stamp with!!

Here's a list of all products used (please note that these are affiliate links, so if you happen to purchase anything from one of these links, I will receive a small commission! Thank you!!)