Sometimes you just want to stamp. But I find stamping is an activity I enjoy doing separately from scrapbooking. So I get together with girlfriends and we bring stamps, ink pads, colored pencils, scissors and cardstock. Usually one of us brews up some coffee or we pour wine and then we get busy stamping a bunch of images.

There’s usually a new set of stamps or two that someone brings and we talk about the ideas we have for using these images we’re stamping and what types of cards and pages we could put them on. It is a GREAT way to get your creative juices flowing while dyeing your fingertips with those inkpads – I mean I always end up with dyed fingertips after I stamp a bunch. Basically this is because we don’t clean the stamps until we’re finished. So once you start peeling used acrylic stamps off acrylic blocks you can easily get ink on your fingers.

After we get a bunch of images stamped we start cutting them out, coloring them with pencils, adding accents with pens and making little piles of the images. You can make several color schemes using different colored inks, papers and pencils.  The combinations really do seem endless.  We also find that when we combine our skills then we get a lot more accomplished – for instance one of us is fast at cutting out the images with small, sharp scissors while another keeps the stamp factory going and choosing good colors and making matches with layout papers and still another keeps us organized and stocked with snacks and drinks.

Some of the images that this technique is best for are themes that you will create embellishments from for scrapbook pages, or a set of stamped images with which you can make greeting cards (birthday cards, thank you cards, Christmas cards – or even card sets to be given as gifts!), recipe cards or gift tags. The possibilities really are quite numerous.

In an afternoon you can finish about a hundred images per person to use on your upcoming projects. So plan some time to spend stamping some of your own embellishments and use those stamps and inkpads to book time with the gals and get a great afternoon of chatting in while creating something pretty and useful.

When the time comes to use those images you will be DELIGHTED that you don’t have to stamp, color or cut them because you can just start using them to make your projects and make them quickly. You will be pleased with yourself and your advance planning.

Tagged with: card-making | color | embellishments | planning | stamping

Categorized as: Card Making | Cost-efficiency | Embellishments | Stamping | Stickers