So You Think You Can Stamp?

Its up and its time to vote! I'm really bad about asking for favors and I really hate to ask for votes but please, please, please go vote!!!! Simple Scrapbooks created a blog just for for voting... http://stampcontest.blogspot.com/ You can either leave a comment or follow the link to cast your vote. You can vote as many times as you wish between Monday, September 15 (noon) till Thursday, September 18 at noon (MST). Theoretically you could keep voting over and over or also vote for multiple layouts just like American Idol.

This round's challenge was 2 step stamping. Here is my layout for the challenge. I must have pulled every single stamp out last week experimenting with 2 step stamping. I ended up using the technique for the background and also for the trees. I really liked this technique because its a way of bringing extra color into your stamped images without water coloring. Here is my finished layout...



To create the background, I first sketched in pencil lines creating a grid. This makes it SO much easier when stamping. I then stamped the circular design in Versamark in the middle of the squares.



Next I had to stamp the center dots. I'm a tad bit frugal when it comes to crafting. Ok, my husband would say I'm cheap, lol! When you get the See D's stamps they come already die cut. I couldn't bare to throw away the extra outside rubber so I punched a bunch of holes out with a regular old office hole punch. The rubber is fairly thin so its not too hard to punch out. I originally punched them out with the idea of creating a row of dots or something to stamp with. I used one of those to create the center dot. Yes, a pencil eraser would probably also work great, but with my kids its impossible to find an untouched/unchewed eraser in my house. ;) I first stamped the dot in white and then went back and stamped it in lime. You need the white underneath the lime for it to show up.

I used the pencil lines to machine stitch the vertical lines and then went back and erased the horizontal lines.

The journaling stamp originally had a phrase on the top and a car at the bottom. Really cute stamp, but it didn't work for what I needed. I inked up the stamp, cut a strip of paper the size of the phrase, laid it over the inked stamp. The ink is sticky enough to hold it on. I knew I was covering the car with the tree images so I didn't worry about covering that. Aren't those little trees cute? And they were only a $1! yep, I'm cheap. LOL!

And just one last photo so you can see the journaling. Here's my little cutie-patootie on his first day of Kindergarten.

supplies used:

stamps: October Afternoon (circle design, journal block), See D's (tree, dot)

stickers: American Crafts

cardstock: Prism

ink: Versamark, Colorbox

Now what are you waiting for? Go vote!