Stamping

Hello there

I own some stamps. I have been to stamping classes using Stampin' Up products; I have enjoyed them. I love watching people like Barbara Gray, Melanie Heaton and many others, create gorgeous pieces with their stamping projects. I have not 'got into' it much though due to the expense mostly but also due to lack of talent. There are so many products you need to buy for stamping; stamps, inks (so many brands and types), papers (so many brands and types) and pens (yet again, so many brands and types). There's so much out there in the marketplace that it becomes a bit mind boggling to know which will suit me best and which of them I can afford. You have to be good at shading and remembering paper/ink/pen blends which work without smudging your work all over the page. Aarrrgghhhhh! It all seems too stressful and expensive and I just get overwhelmed by it all, so up to now I've stayed away.

I hear you. Yes I know I have used stamps before but I haven't coloured them with pens in the past; I've avoided it like the plague. I haven't tried braying before either and I still haven't! :-)

The very first laying down of colour with one of my
new Spectrum Noir. I love how no stripes are visible.
The edges are lighter because I made them like that.

May Flaum has the right attitude to it though. I follow her blog daily and I was on her BigPictureClass earlier this year. She has a real 'gung-ho' attitude to scrapping and she has confidence in herself to die for. For those of you who either don't know about May or you don't know what I mean by the term 'gung-ho' then a) go watch her videos and read her site - you'll love it b) gung-ho means 'get in there', 'go for it', 'be brave', 'just play'. May isn't scared to share her 'failures'. Sometimes she layers ink over paint, over stamping and it can look amazing but other times it just looks like a brown blobby mess but she'll adapt that at another date to work for her. She doesn't let it stop her creative flow. She makes an almighty mess and comes out with wonderful stuff.

That's the secret.

Let go.

May goes on and on and on about not worrying about whether you're using the 'right' thing to re-create her projects (which is great); although she does also list the contents/links under each posting which is great, if you live in U.S.A!  I don't live there, so I often have to improvise with what I have but that's what it's meant to be. It's meant to be my interpretation; my skills; my time available; my money available; my recipient's needs (if it's a card) etc. I'm not May. I love creativity not copying.

So recently I got the chance to buy some Spectrum Noir pens at a good price, so I took the plunge. On Saturday I just grabbed some cardstock, stamped a Stampavie (Helz Cuppleditch's Ruffle puppy plaque) stamp with black archival ink and set to colouring the image with a little help from a Leann Chivers video on youtube. Sure enough, I didn't have all the pens Leann used or the right type of stamp really but I carried on. I just coloured. I quickly realised that the cardstock wasn't great, as it's not smooth coated. I also saw that the ink was being smudged by the pens. So what?! I was playing. I was learning. I was growing in confidence.

Take care out there