1-2-3 Recipe challenge

This week’s The Paper Variety challenge is a 1-2-3 recipe challenge. You pick any items and use them in the quantity of one, two and three. I wanted to see what I could do if I went really hard core with this challenge. So here is what I picked: one pattern paper, two stamp sets (an image and a sentiment), and three distress ink colors. I wanted to go all the way hard core and only use those things. But I just couldn’t do it. So the additional supplies I used were cardstock for the card base (though I probably could have worked in more of the pattern paper), a waterproof ink to stamp my images (so they wouldn’t bleed when water colored) and a punch to shape my pattern paper.

I used my three distress ink colors three ways to make them go farther in the design.

1. I used them to distress the background with layers of color and added subtle stamp images from the image stamp set.
2. I used it to add hard inking of the paper paper edges to get it to pop a bit.
3. I used an aqua painter to pull color from the ink pad to paint in the stamped image.

When you are restricted in your product choices – for a challenge, a small crop bag, a tight budget or whatever – make your supplies go farther by figuring out multiple ways to put those items to use.

No go cook up your own 1-2-3 crafty soup!