Perfect Repeating Patterns

Hello crafty friends! I have a fun technique to share today. And I’ll warn you ahead of time, it is addictive!

I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for a pretty pattern. However, I have a love/hate relationship with patterned paper. I love to look at it, but I hate to cut into it! Hence why I love to stamp out my own.

I can’t tell you how many times I get halfway through stamping out a pattern only to stamp an image too close or not close enough and then the “seamless” is off, or one area overlaps that shouldn’t. Now normally I go with the flow and figure out a way to cover or cut out that area, but sometimes I have to start over.

Today’s technique shows you how to take out the guess work and stamp perfect patterns every time. With the tiniest bit of pre-planning, you’ll be stamping out as many pretty patterns as you’d like.

Bonus? Once you’ve set up your “template”, it can be reused again and again with different color combinations!

This is one of those that is definitely a show, rather than tell technique, so be sure to watch the video. Here, I’ll go over each card along with the color combos and products used. You will need a stamp positioning tool for this – I’ve used the standard sized MISTI – but whichever you have will do. As the name suggests, repeating pattern, you will be doing a lot of repetitive stamping of a simple floral motif. The MISTI makes this super quick, easy, and best of all…accurate.

All of the patterns today were stamped using the Happy Wishes stamp set. (All products will be listed at the end of this post for reference) This first pair of cards comes from the same pattern. I stamped out a 6×6″ inch pattern onto white card stock.

For the first card, I trimmed a 4 x 5.25″ panel from the patterned paper and mounted it to a standard card base with foam tape. The sentiment, also from Happy Wishes was stamped onto a die cut circle using the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circle wafer dies. To accent the sentiment, I stamped a few extra floral elements, die cut them using the Happy Wishes wafer die and used them to flanked the sentiment with a few floral clusters.

I had some left over pieces of pattern from where I trimmed out the panel from the first card, and used them to die cut a couple of envelopes from using the Love Notes wafer die. I also cut a few of the floral images from the patterned scraps using the Happy Wishes wafer die.

I arranged all of the pieces in a little vignette and stamped my sentiment below it.

I knew I wanted to place all of this on a white base, but it felt a little too plain with all of the white on white, so I added a little bit of texture to the background using my score board and stylus. I have a video on this technique in this post for more on how to do that.

The next card uses the same color combo as the previous ones, except I chose to use a bit more of Last Leaf dye ink. Switching up which color you use more predominately in a pattern can give it a whole different feel.

I trimmed this one down to 5″ square and mounted it to a 5.25″ card base. Again, I used the same main sentiment and added the “on your special day” and placed both on a hexagon label die cut from the Clear Cut Stackers: Hexagon wafer die. More little floral images stamped and die cut flank the top and bottom of the sentiment.

This time I added some texture to the background by using a couple sizes of the Clear Cut Stackers: Hexagon wafer die to dry emboss instead of cutting. I nested them in the center of my background and swapped out my cutting mats for my embossing mats in the Big Shot. This allows the dies to emboss rather than cut.

The next card uses many of the same colors, but I swapped out the Fairy Dust for Miami Spice. I also changed my floral motif a bit and used some different images from the set.

I trimmed the paper down to 4 x 5.25″, cutting from the side rather than the middle makes the pattern appear to be more random. If you prefer to retain the “radial” effect of the pattern, be sure to cut your panel from the center of your paper. Again, I used the Clear Cut Stackers: Hexagon wafer die to cut a hexagon from my pattern and nested a smaller hexagon inside with my sentiment. This time I used the Bold Banner Greetings stamp set.

And this final card really just lets the pattern shine.

This time I used the MISTI to stamp out only the largest elements – the large leaf segment and the large flowers. I then came in and hand stamped the rest of the filler images in a more random pattern to fill in the empty spaces. I made sure to repeat some of the same elements across the clusters but didn’t worry about making them exact. For the sentiment, I stamped “you’re the best” from the Basic Labels stamp set in the middle.

I hope you enjoyed today’s projects and that it gives you some ideas on ways to use this technique. Try it with different images like critters or basic shapes, layering stamps and outlined images. The possibilities are endless!

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you next time!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured supplies used on today’s project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list contains affiliate links.

Wplus9 White Cardstock Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 PURE COLOR Nautical Navy Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	3M Scotch DOUBLE-SIDED FOAM TAPE Shop at: SSS	Ranger Multi-Medium Matte Shop at: SSS
EK Success CRAFT TWEEZERS Precision Tip Shop at: SSS	We R Memory Keepers TRIM AND SCORE Board Shop at: SSS	Wild Mango PURE COLOR Dye INk Shop at: WP9	Flamingo PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
Wplus9 Basic Labels Stamp Set Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Dove Grey Cardstock Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Gift Card Layers Die Shop at: WP9	Miami Spice PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
Last Leaf PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Sea Breeze PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Sweet Nectar PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Warm Wool PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
Tombow MONO Adhesive PERMANENT Tape Dispenser Shop at: SSS	Bold Banner Greetings Shop at: WP9	Fairy Dust PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Simon Says Stamp STITCHED CIRCLES Wafer Dies Shop at: SSS
Happy Wishes Shop at: WP9	PURE COLOR Shell Pink Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Clear Cut Stackers: Hexagon Shop at: WP9	Lawn Fawn Glue Tube Shop at: SSS | EH
Tim Holtz Tonic GLASS MEDIA MAT Shop at: SSS	MISTI Precision Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS | EH	Gemini Junior Shop at: SSS	Happy Wishes Die Shop at: WP9
Love Notes Die Shop at: WP9