A fable

So today I have a fable for you, a story that may be familiar to you other crafters out there, and if not there is a learning lesson :-)


The Story of the Crafty Girl and the Special Stamps

Once upon a time a crafty girl went to the local craft store and was amazed by the beautiful cards made with some very fancy stamps. She wondered who it was who had the skills to make such things, and how they did it.

The smart merchant, impelled by both kindness and sales sense, took some time to show the crafty girl more samples made with these special stamps, and told her how they were done. New techniques, ink and paper would be required, advised the merchant, and then she too could make amazing beautiful cards like the ones on display.

The crafty girl was leary. Many merchants had made claims in the past that had not worked out as promised, and she was doubtful about being able to make cards with these special stamps. She left the craft store, but she could not forget.

Several weeks later, the card making girl in our story finally went back to the store and handed her Visa over in exchange for all the unusual items that she was told were needed. Had she made a mistake? What would come of this?

There is a happy ending to this story, as when the crafty girl followed the instructions, and experimented a bit too with other things, she found she too could make amazingly beautiful cards with these complicated looking special stamps.

~ The End~


So, what stamps, you must be wondering, would I call Special, Fancy and Complicated? Well, these are the Thomas Kinkaid stamps. Have you seen these? I must tell you, th

For those of you who have used these TK stamps, I'd love to hear how you use them (colour them?) and would be thrilled if you'd share links with me of samples of what you've made.

My first Thomas Kinkaid stamp was purchased just last month. It is the Village Christmas one, and I love it. I love it so much that I've also ordered another one that I should be getting soon :-)

I want to give you a chance to see how versatile this stamp is, so I'm going to fill up today's post with 4 samples using the same stamp.

Here is the first card I made with it:














In this card I stamped the image in Versafine on plain Staples 110lb cardstock, then heatset iridescent ice embossing powder on top of it, and cut it out with a nestie. I ran my silver Encore ink pad lightly over the edge to give it a small bit of border. I punched holes in the edges and ran some retired organza SU ribbon through it, and placed it on the background, and tied it up adding a bit of silver cord as an accent. The background is made with SU black cardstock, with a background stamped in Encore silver ink, and then I used the Encore ink pad on the edges but in a wider messy way than with the top sheet. I also added some snowflakes with white craft ink. While there were a number of steps, they were all easy, and because there was no colouring it was actually really quick!


I decided to try dressing one up with a bit of Acetate (plastic overhead sheets), and here it is:

On this one, I stamped the image in Versafine on plain white paper, and then used an embossing powder similar to Irridescent Ice from another company. I was dissapointed, it's hard to tell in the photo, but in person it did not come out half as nice as the SU embossing powder. Despite that, I used the SU Holiday print background and then used a piece of acetate sheet overtop, and stamped snowflakes using white Staz on ink. I really like this one, when it sits on the mantel the acetate sheet moves a bit and it really does seem like you are looking at a scene where it is snowing.

In this next card, I wanted something quick and simple, with a little less fuss than the others

Here I used the second half of the image from the above card, that I'd already stamped and embossed, and simply cut it into a square, matted it in black, laid it over some black inexpensive ribbon, and put it on a background sheet, and Voila! another card done, this time in about 5 minutes!


And here is the card I made last night. My goal was to do something a bit more glitzy.

On this card I used black cardstock for the background, and sprayed it with Tattered Angels glimmer mist, and then heat set it. The main image I cut into three, but only used two of the panels here, and it was stamped with Versafine on SU Glossy Cardstock, so it looks like a photo. On the grey mats I used silver Encore ink on the edges for a bit of extra shine, and then I finished it off with some ribbon and primas. I love how vibrant it turned out!


Well, that's it for today, I'd love to hear your ideas and comments, and especially any ideas of other ways to use this stamp!