February 11, 2017
10 Comments
Hey everyone! Somehow the week has flown by again and it’s time for another Stamp It Saturday post. Not sure how that happened, but since we’re here…
They may not be quite as exciting as the images, but sentiment stamps are an essential part of our stamping kit. The right sentiment can make a card and set off an image perfectly.
Stamping Bella stamps often come with fantastic sentiments to accompany the images (and recently we’ve added some beautiful sentiment sets to increase your choices), giving you an excellent starting point for creating cards and other projects. Rubber stamps are an investment for any crafter, so it’s good to think of ways we can get the most from our investment, stretching the amount of use we can get from the stamps and really getting our money’s worth!
It may seem obvious, but one easy way to get more from your stamp collection is to mix and match your images and sentiments. Emily tries to release images that work year round and for a variety of occasions. Simply changing up the sentiment you pair with an image can take it from Valentine’s Day to birthday, or “just because”. You might love the image that comes in a set but have a different occasion or recipient in mind that the sentiment wouldn’t work for. An image might come with a sentiment that reads “From All of Us” or “We Miss You!”, but you want to send a card from just yourself. No problem!
On the card above I wanted a really simple sentiment to convey the “having a rubbish day/week/month/year” message in a sympathetic but humorous way. Stamping Bella Stuffie Peaches comes with a great sentiment, but it didn’t quite work for me on this occasion. Instead, I used one of the sentiments from my favourite The Chicks Who Couldn’t Even stamp set. Perfect! If I had received this card in the mail this week in particular, I would have responded instantly with I KNOW RIGHT?!
On this second card featuring Chicks with a Sprinkle On Top I used the sentiment from another Cool Chicks stamp set – Iron Chef Chicks. Again, the image comes with a great sentiment, but it didn’t quite work for my intended recipient. I think this sentiment could work with quite a few of the Cool Chicks stamps in particular, silly creatures that they are! You’ll notice that I also used one of the approaches described below to use the sentiment on my card.
TOP TIP: For this to work well, it is really handy to build an index or catalogue of your sentiment stamps that you can flip through to find the perfect sentiment for your card. You could do this by stamping on a sheet of paper and making a note next to each one which set it comes in, or where it is stored depending on your personal organisation system (or lack of 😉 ). Alternatively and possibly faster you could create one on the computer in a spreadsheet or Word document. Whatever works for you!
Quite often I fall in love with a sentiment or quote, but it just doesn’t quite work for my card design or layout. It might be too wide, too tall, or I may just wish that I could make better use of the space around the image.
There are two ways to deal with this:
The first and possibly my favourite is to simply stamp the sentiment on a separate piece of paper and then cut it apart using a trimmer/scissors/craft knife to rearrange on my card as desired.
For this technique a glue pen and some tweezers are invaluable tools as it can get a little fiddly!
Using this technique can give a more playful look, as in the card above featuring Harry the Stuffie gets Happy Mail together with part of the sentiment from Mail Chick and part from another sentiment I can’t quite place right now! It also means, as you can see here, you can take away words or add them from other sentiments to create your own wording.
With some sentiments that mix fonts you may need to stamp a few copies as the letters may be awkwardly positioned. The second method I’m about to share can also be used in conjunction with this one to aid the process!
This method is particularly useful if you only wish to stamp part of a sentiment. Simply ink up your stamp, then use masking tape (I like Post-It Tape for this) to cover up the part you don’t want to stamp before applying to paper!
Stamp sets: Tiny Townie Garden Girl Rose and Garden Girl Flower Sentiments.
I find I’m a little more successful with this method than if I simply wipe the ink off the areas I don’t want to stamp. The masking tape ensures that no ink residue ends up on the paper.
I use a piece of acetate to help work out the placement for my stamp, as with rubber it can be trickier to see if it is aligned correctly. Using the acetate laid over my paper allows me to position the stamp, test and reposition as necessary. This can be wiped clean and re-used. I keep mine with the MISTI.
Perfect! All ready for colouring and popping on a card.
On the above card I used Tiny Townie Garden Girl Lily of the Valley along with one of the sentiments from the Garden Girls Flower Sentiments set which I stamped, and cut apart using the two methods above in combination.
As mentioned in the previous step, this method can be helpful when working with sentiments that are arranged in such a way that makes it tricky to cut them apart evenly.
This method is also great if you wish to rearrange your sentiment layout, but don’t like the collaged look of words that have been cut out and stuck down. Simply mask and stamp in stages. This can be a little more challenging with rubber but a stamping tool like the MISTI can be a big help and the results are definitely worth the effort.
Here are a few more cards where I’ve used the tips above to make sentiment stamps work better for me:
Stamp set: Tiny Townie Patricia loves Pumpkins (incl. sentiment).
Stamp set: The Bee and The Heart (incl. sentiment).
Stamp sets: Love Chicks and part of the sentiment from Cupid Chicks.
If you try out the techniques shown in any of the posts with your Stamping Bella stamps, be sure to share! We would love to see the results and hear how you feel about them. Show off your creations in the comments below and even better, share your own favourite tips with us. Let’s talk stamping!
If you are posting your images online, we would love to see them on Instagram and all the platforms mentioned above. To make it easier for us to find you just use #markergeekmonday and/or #stampingbella as a hashtag. Even better tag me @markergeek and @stampingbella . We love it when you connect, so don’t be shy!
If you’re on Facebook join us in our private chat group Stamping Bella Sistahood to share your creations there and chat all things Stamping Bella related!
Until next time, HAPPY COLOURING!
MWAH
Elaineabella
Love this
I like a lot of what you are saying and I totally see what you are doing. I never thought to do this before. One year from a children’s toy catalog I bought a great stamp set. Now I just have to find it! LOL Anyway, it was one magnetic bar and lots of words that made sentiments. It was great for doing what you did with the Post It Tape which I have never seen before. The stamps obviously had magnets on them but you could make any sentiment you wanted. Sometimes I would look at all the words and still not know what to say! LOL
I’m going to keep this in my crafts folder for future reference. Thanks!
When I first started purchasing stamps and dies I started an excel spreadsheet listing name, measurements of dies, manufacturer, description of images and sentiments in the stamp set. That way, since I now have hundreds and hundreds (and maybe a few more hundreds) of stamps, I can look for particular words or images. Can’t remember where the little grass patch is? I can search for it. I’ve recently started keeping a little sheet handy for those tiny hearts, grass, favorite phrase and just stick the stamp on the sheet for ease of decorating my images or my envelopes.
Good reminder on using our stamps!
Oh I have been using some of these same tips on my cards! I love how there are so many sentiments and you can just mix them up how you please. I also use a piece of acetate in my Misti when I place my sentiments. I have masked some of the sentiments off and then stamped them to make the sentiments that I want. Love how this can be done! 🙂
Fab tips here Elaine… thank you!
Christine x
Sometimes you just forget things until you see a fab handy hint like this. X
I’m late to the party, but great tips! My biggest issue with small sentiments is how to cut them out evenly after stamped. Alternatively, how to stamp them straight on a tiny strip or banner. Any tips? (I’d prefer not to use an Exacto.) Thanks!
Hi Beth, Elaineabella here! When I stamp and then cut apart a sentiment I don’t try to make it perfect, that’s part of the charm. When trying to stamp straight on a strip or banner I tend to use a stamp positioning tool and a piece of acetate to get the stamp lined up perfectly before stamping. Hope that helps!
Wow, you’re fast – especially considering how this was from a while back!
Absolutely – I love using a little acetate grid over my card in a positioner but for some reason hadn’t thought about it for a tiny sentiment – thank you!
If it’s a tiny strip it could be tough to secure it with a magnet, but I could use repositionable double sided tape – or cut the strip longer so there’s something for the magnet to hold that can be snipped off afterwards.
Again, thank you – and glad I found you!