Four Ways Friday #49 - En Francais Background Stamp

This week's Four Ways Friday is all about the En Francais Background stamp.  This stamp is so versatile it was hard for me to limit myself to Four Ways! :)

This first card using the background stamp in a very traditional way.  I inked up the background stamp with various shades of blue (baja breeze, marina mist, and bashful blue) using markers.  I then applied the Very Vanilla card stock onto the stamp to transfer the image.  I find that bringing the card stock to the stamp, as opposed to bringing the stamp to the card stock, transfers the image more completely.  I then crumpled the paper and sponged the creases and the edges with baja breeze.  The panel was sewn to a Sahara Sand card stock piece and then adhered to the card base.  The flower is two scrunched up scallop circle punches with a rhinestone brad in the center.  The leaves are the petals from the 5 petal flower punch.  The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations, stamped in Chocolate Chip and punched out with the decorative label punch.

You can punch out pieces that you stamp with the En Francais background stamp!  Here I stamped onto Marina Mist card stock with Early Espresso ink and then punched out the bird with the 2-step bird punch.  I sponged the edges of the bird with the same ink.  I then masked the Soft Suede card base and stamped the En Francais again.  Here is what the masked card looked like:

I then stamped images from Lovely As A Tree using Chocolate Chip and Soft Suede ink.  The greeting is from Curvy Verses and was stamped using VersaMark and heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

You are definitely not limited to stamping on card stock!  Here I stamped the En Francais stamp onto twill ribbon using Staz-On ink and then knotted the ribbon.  The Rich Razzleberry card base was run through the Big Shot with the Elegant Lines embossing folder.  The greeting from Sincere Salutations was stamped in Rich Razzleberry ink onto Natural Ivory card stock and punched out with the extra large oval punch.  The ribbon was attached to the card using glue dots.

I love creating items other than cards and this stamp lends itself well to stamping on fabric!  Here I stamped the background stamp onto white cotton (and old duvet that we no longer use) and then sewed the two pieces of white cotton together to form a bookmark.  The sentiment was added using Staz-On ink and the Calendar Alphabet & Numbers stamp set.  I added some Basic Black ribbon and a felt butterfly that I cut out using the Beautiful Butterflies die.
Thanks for joining me for this week's Four Ways Friday.  I hope these examples inspire you to try to use your background stamps in new and exciting ways!!!!  Have a wonderfully creative weekend!!!!