First up, let's check out the cards!
Don't they look awesome?! I bet you can't tell where the stamp surgery took place! *wink*
Usually I am the *last* person to resort to stamp surgery. Those poor stamps! I almost always opt for selective inking and/or masking instead. But in some circumstances stamp surgery is the quickest or best option. I came across such a scenario when I was using the Bible Journaling and Christmas Journaling stamp sets.
I had the word 'JOY' from the Christmas Journaling set, but I also wanted to spell out 'TO THE WORLD' - and those stamps don't exist! So I decided to take a look at the words that did exist in the sets and do a little stamp surgery to create what I needed!
I noticed I had a 'WORD' stamp which was just one letter away from being 'WORLD'. I worked out that by doing some stamp surgery on it and on the 'LIFE' word, I could put together the word 'WORLD' and be able to stamp it all in one go! If I had used selective inking or masking then I could have still put the word together, but it would have taken longer to do, and might not have lined up properly. I also worked out that I could get the 'TO' from the word 'TODAY' and 'THE' from the 'THY' and 'LIFE' stamps.
So far so good!
What I didn't bank on was that there were subtle differences in the sizing of the words in this set! So the 'E' from 'LIFE' was too big to go with the 'TH' from 'THY'! So I had to resort to a little more surgery, this time with a stamp from the Christmas Journaling set!
The 'E' from 'EARTH' was the right size - hooray!
Here are both cards again:
Some other notes about how these cards came together. I really wanted the wording to be the attention grabber for the cards, so I decided that the only other embellishment would be the three watercolour stripes down the front, in different metallic shades. These were my abstract interpretation of The Three Kings - neat huh?
I did my watercolouring first, using a mix of different diluted shimmer sprays for my metallics. I then mixed a little glue and glitter together and smeared it over the stripes, to add an extra subtle layer of glitz, then finally stamped my sentiments. I was able to line up all my stamps in my Mini MISTI and stamp them all in one go with perfect placement - go MISTI! I just love the end results!
So I promised you a couple of tips for successful stamp surgery, right? Here we go!
- Use a decent pair of scissors when cutting your stamps apart. The last thing you need is to botch the cut because the blades aren't cutting the photopolymer well!
- Ink up your stamps with black ink first! This might be a little messy (you can stamp them off slightly before cutting if you like), but this tip is a great one to help you see exactly where the stamping surface is - and where your blades should avoid! Especially important with intricate designs or when elements of the design are close together, like these letters were!
- Take the stamp between your fingers and bend it in on itself, with the stamping area on the outside. This will bend the design apart a bit so you can get your scissors into the tighter areas more easily!
I hope these cards and tips have helped to take some of the fear out of stamp surgery - and helped you to see how you can stretch your stamps and create with limited supplies! I'd love to hear what you think about this! Thanks for stopping by!
Supplies:
Love all the shimmer... so classy!
ReplyDeleteVery unique stamp set and awesome work with that!
ReplyDeleteGreat tips! Super idea to bend the stamp back to widen the space between the stamping surfaces. I thought perhaps you had taken a horizontal stamp and made it vertical. I would never have guessed you built words!
ReplyDeleteI think you did a wonderful job! I love your cards, and thanks for the tips!
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