The Inky Scrapper: National Stamping Month "Pair-A-Phrase" Special Offer (& a Blog Hop)

Close To My Heart has two special offers this month! You've probably already heard about the Extra! Extra! free stamp set with an August stamp of the month purchase, but have you heard about the Pair-A-Phrase double stamp set offer? (You can find a link below for complete details, but with a minimum $75 purchase, you get this amazing double stamp set free!)

Several of my consultant friends decided to create a blog hop for this great stamp set. You may have arrived here from Angie's blog, and to continue the hop, head to Shannon's blog next. Continue along the blog hop if you'd like to see some creative uses with this cool double stamp set.

I have created two very different cards using the same bicycle image. The first is "pretty in pink" with the Sophia paper pack and colored pencils to fill in the lined image. Of course no girly card would be complete without a little bling! (This sketch is the "Lucky Layers" pattern from Wishes. If you come back in a few days, you'll see another card with this same set and design.)

This second card is what I made to celebrate my brother's recent birthday. He's a cyclist

and certainly isn't into frou-frou and flowers, so I masked off the basket of posies to create a more masculine card. (I'm sharing a quick photo tutorial below if you'd like to learn how.) I used my circle punch to cut a window into the front that shows a peek to the inside with the decorative strip of presents. All of the images on this card are from the Pair-A-Phrase set except for the Happy Birthday sentiment (from Party Pennants).

I have some other fun Pair-a-Phrase cards to share with you, so come back often or even become a follower.

If you'd like to skip the masking tutorial, hop along to Shannon's blog!

To remove the flowers from the bicycle, grab some clear tape and tape over the parts you don't want on your final project.

Then, ink up your image.

Next, carefully remove the (inky) tape and set it aside. (You can reuse this tape a few times if you want to stamp this same image more than once, but be careful!) "Huff" (blow gently to reactivate the ink) on your inked image and then stamp it onto your project.