Putting Our Stamp on May

April showers certainly do bring May flowers, and this month is bound to be teeming with beautiful blossoms.  In fact, many of them are springing up in this month's JBS Mercantile kits!  Here on the JBS Mercantile blog, we'll be putting our stamp on May, bringing you four weeks of stamping projects created by our bloomin' awesome design team!

This week we'll be focusing on one of our favorite stamps:

This acrylic butterfly stamp not only creates a beautiful and crisp image, but it is also extremely versatile. All this week, we'll be showcasing this stamp through four projects, with four different approaches.

Today's project is from yours truly, Jill.

The first of May, or May Day, is Lei Day in Hawaii.  In schools throughout the state, it is traditional to have a May Day program, complete with a royal court -- including a king and queen.  As a sixth grader, I was shocked when I was selected to be the May Day queen.  This layout features a photo of me dancing with the princesses in the court to "Song of Old Hawai'i" on May Day.

In a way, being queen was a transformative experience for me, so the butterfly stamp was the perfect choice for this page.  I also wanted to capture a springtime feel, since flowers are so much a part of May Day, so I pieced together some lovely floral pages and transparencies from a few JBS hodge podge books beneath the line of stamped butterflies.

This layout involves the best kind of stamping -- the no-stress kind!

I decided to work with a green, yellow, and red color scheme, to match the colors in the papers, and went with a varicolored stamping method.   I began by selecting four Jenni Bowlin for Ranger dye inks, pairing Seed Packet with Stick Candy, and Chili Powder and Lemon Drops.

I placed the stamp on an acrylic block, and used each pair of inks on the stamp, dividing the color on the stamp into quadrants.  I applied the ink pad directly to the stamp (instead of vice-versa) so that I could have more control over where the ink appeared.

Once the two colors were applied to the stamp, I stamped the image onto a sheet of JBS Core'dinations textured cardstock.  I repeated the process with the other pair of colors, until I had a line of beautiful varicolored butterflies.

I layered the papers, transparencies, and photo beneath the butterflies, and stitched a free-flowing, curvy line over the top.  I kept the butterfly motif going with the addition of JBS vellum-embellished butterflies and butterfly banner alpha stickers.

The next time you pick up a stamp, consider repeating images and varying colors.

Of course, this is just one approach to using this lovely stamp.  Check back each day this week for more inspiration, and be sure to share your own ideas on our message board!

This May, you can also look forward to ideas for using stamps with scissors, for heat embossing, and for discovering creative approaches to stamping and beyond!  We're definitely giving May our stamp of approval.