Welcome Easter Play

   Hello stamping life friends! I've been playing with the new Welcome Easter set and wanted to share one of my favorite tips for crafting: dummy sheets.
   Back when I first started stamping I couldn't afford cardstock in every color and I was very careful not to attempt a card until I practiced it. My parents once owned a small advertising newspaper, and I learned how to "dummy" something during the layout process. If any of you ever worked on a yearbook staff, or some similar publishing group you know exactly what I'm talking about.
   Using dummies is also one of my green techniques...I use the backs of office paper cut to card size and reach for these little practice canvases when I sit down to create. I often find certain images tricky to compose a design and trying them out on scratch paper frees me to try many things without wasting more precious--and costly--resources!

   As you can see in this image taken of my desk, I have been trying different elements of the critters in the Happy Easter set. [the colored cardstock you see is old, non-Stampin' Up! stock which is too thin for a decent card] 
   My process includes stamping and cutting elements to be able to arrange them on different color/texture backgrounds and see what I like and what works in the scale of a normal card size. It saves a lot of time and frustration, and I have a little index card box of my dummy sheets for the next time I pull out the set. 
   An added bonus is that I can use the dummy cutouts for masks too:)
   Try it out for yourself and let me know how you put your own stamp on it...and stay tuned tomorrow for more Happy Easter set designs and the reveal of the Pals hop blog candy and winner from my blog!