Corona Crafts - the Layered Look...

In a fit of self-preservation, I ordered a new stamp-and-die set last week.  They arrived Wednesday, and within an hour of them hitting the mailbox, I opened the package and started playing.

The Ton has started making layering stamps sets that a) are the easiest stamps to layer ever, and b) have you stamp and then die cut several images all at the same time, and c) are beautiful.  The one issue I have with them is that, in all of their ingenuity, they are expensive.  Knowing this, The Ton just came out with a smaller set that works the same way.  I hemmed and hawed over it for a while, but then happily snapped it up.  Here's a screenshot from their website of a bit of the Floral Bits set, just to show you how it works:

The top image is the bottom layer of the flowers; the bottom image is the next layer that adds shadows and details that you stamp in a darker color.  There's a third image too that adds even more detail, and two stamps for the solid leaves layer, and the leaf details.  The cool different thing are those squares.  If you align the squares when you're stamping, it takes the guesswork out of getting the detail layer in exactly the right place.  I'm getting better at this, but it's still a thing I struggle with.  Here's an example of my almost-but-not-quite layering:

This is an older set from The Ton called Toned Squares.   I love this set, and I've had it for a while, but when I actually sat down to play with it the other month, if you click on the photo above to look at a larger image, you can see that the squares, especially the orange version, are a little out of alignment.  Not in a terrible, unusable way, but in  a way I wish they weren't.  Those alignment squares in the new Floral Bits set really make a difference (not that I still can't mess things up somehow, of course...), and best yet, when you use the die to cut out the flowers, the alignment squares are gone anyway.

I stamped a bunch of flowers with some Altenew ink sets and made this card:

For a background, I used The Ton's Modern Plaid stamped with Impression Obsession hybrid ink in Banana.  The teacup diecut is from the Cups Duo dies by Cat's Pajamas, and the sentiment from the Blooms Turnabout Set from Concord and 9th.

Even for me, this card came together very quickly, and I plan to make more in a similar vein soon.  Now if only The Ton would re-release some of their older sets with alignment squares, it would be a beautiful thing.  I can furnish a small list...

This weekend I hope to play with some other new-ish floral stamps as well as get some time in the garden!