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Can you see the POSSIBILITIES?

>> Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Today I wanted to share a little secret I have about buying stamps...LOOK FOR POSSIBILITIES! When I am looking to buy stamps I ALWAYS look to see if there is something extra that I can do with a stamp. When choosing stamps for today's projects, I looked for those extra POSSIBILITIES...

For this first card I wanted an elegant looking sentiment stamp to coordinate with my pumpkin image. This sentiment stamp had the exact style "Happy Thanksgiving" I wanted, but I didn't need the whole sentiment. I had 2 options to get my desired sentiment, I could ink only the "Happy Thanksgiving" portion of the stamp and stamp it, or I could cut the "Happy Thanksgiving" portion from the rest of the sentiment and use it individually (this option only works when you are using unmounted stamps). For this card I chose the 2nd option - cutting my stamp apart. For me, the benefit of using unmounted stamps is you can cut sentiments apart and use them separately but still fit them back together perfectly if you want to use the entire sentiment. For this sentiment stamp, I cut a straight line under the "& good times". This left me with 2 sentiments that work great individually, but still leaving me with the option of using them together also.



For this 2nd card, I chose the option of just inking one word from the sentiment. I did not cut this stamp apart, I just used a marker to ink one word, huffed on the stamp and stamped.
For the ghost image I stamped the full image on a piece of white cardstock and just cut around the ghost. So many possibilities!





For this 3rd card I also used the inking only a portion of the stamp option once again. When I first saw this star stamp I immediately saw POSSIBILITIES! I thought that the tree decorations on the interior of the star would look fabulous by themselves. I inked only the trees using a marker, huffed on the stamp and stamped it. I ended up with perfect little Christmas trees. Did you see this extra possibility in the star stamp?

Another great option you have with unmounted stamps is you can change the configuration of sentiments. If the sentiment stamp is 3 lines and you wanted a single line you can cut the sentiment and piece it together into a single line. When doing this techinique I highly recommend using a Stamp-a-ma-jig or some other type of positioning system-this will help you get things lined up exactly as you want. For some reason I can't find the photo of my example for this technique, but you can see it HERE at the DRS Designs website. For my card I changed a 4 line sentiment into a 3 line sentiment.

Thats all I have for you today. I hope everyone has a day full of POSSIBILITIES!!!!
Thanks for stopping by!

8 comments:

Jennifer E. said...

Heather, Thanks for the awesome explanation! I too, use my stamps with both of the ways you've explained. I get so much more use out of my stamps this way! Another great reason why unmounted stamps are sooooo much better! :-)

Anonymous said...

Very cool ideas!!! :) TFS!

Jessica G. said...

I, too, love versatile stamps! Masking off portions of sentiments is one of my favorite 'tricks', but I never noticed the Christmas tree hiding in the star image. Great job maximizing those stamps with amazing cards!

Jennifer_GlitterInMyHair said...

All of your cards and ideas are awesome! I wish I had thought of cutting up my UM sentiments awhile back instead of all the painstaking masking and lining up I ended up doing!! Great info!

Etha said...

beautiful cards, great take on the variations that one can do!! I always feel a little bit bad when I cut a stamp apart, but then, hey I'm using it!! I just totally l ove how you made that tree from the star, amazing! I did NOT see that :)

Janette said...

very pretty Heather- great use of the stamps! I know exactly what you mean about the possibilities- I do the same thing, great tips

Angel said...

awesome ideas!! love every card ~ great job, heather!!!

Karen said...

Great work! I love how you've taken that alternate view of the stamps, esp with the tress in the star.

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