Have you ever tried to do a monochrome card?

I love experimenting with colors. Sometimes I mix too many, but one style I often get back to is totally the opposite of many colors: the monochrome. Monochrome means using one color only, but all shades of it. I especially use it with distress inks, stamps and stencil.

  • Type of project: card
  • Occasion: birthday
  • Style: artsy
  • Techniques used: stamping, stenciling
  • Decoration: die-cuts, washi tape, sequins
  • Main colour: blue
  • Media used: distress oxide, metallic cardstock, white ink
  • Equipment used: dies, stamps, stencils

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It’s really a quite simple card. I started off with blending in the background in a light blue shade. Then I used six different stamps and one stencil. The face, the group of women, the music sheet, the dress, the text border and the scalloped border – all of these motives are different stamps. Then I used the stencil to make a fishtail pattern to fill out the rest of the space. All of this in a darker blue shade. As always when using distress inks I sprinkled some drops of water and sprayed gently with a mister over it to make the color react. Look how beautifully distressed it gets! This is how far I got during this monochromatic experiment a couple of years ago.

Then the project rested in a drawer  unfinished, until I recently got a request to do a card for a 18-year old birthday girl who was very fond of the color blue. My unfinished project seemed perfect for it and finally I new how to finish it; with some metallic cardstock, die cutting the number 18 and letters for the girls name. I also tore a piece of washi tape with coloured dots to as an accent to the monochrome background and used a few sequins for extra shine. I framed it with a white hand drawn frame, a two layers of coloured cardstock before attaching it to the card base. As a final touch I added some stains in white ink.

I find monochromatic cards soothing to look at even when, as I have done here, using many different stamps and motives. The one color binds it all together. If you haven’t tried this technique yet I hope you found some inspiration!