LucieG Wood Stamp Challenge

37 wood-mounted stamps

32 cards

30 days of colouring

10 brands

1 happy stamper

Hi everyone!

When Kathy Racoosin announced her latest Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge at the end of January, I decided that I would play along but added my own challenge – to only use my wood-mounted stamps.

I started crafting over 10 years ago and my two ‘local’ stores at the time had the most amazing stamp rooms full of all sorts of wood-mounted stamps. I would spend HOURS in those rooms. And I have a fine collection of wood-mounted stamps to show for it. Of course, so much has changed since then. Clear stamps have taken the place of wood-mounted stamps – and I can understand why – they’re cheaper, easier to use thanks to stamp positioners, and they are easier to store.

I haven’t been able to part with my wood-mounted stamps but I have rarely used them since I started sharing my cards on social media. I think this coincided with the arrival of the MISTI and the frequent releases of clear stamps that I just couldn’t resist!!

But in January I was determined to show some love to those wood-mounted stamps throughout February.

And I did!

What did I learn?

It’s actually really easy to use wood mounted stamps and get a great impression first time! I had got so used to my MISTI that I was really nervous about wasting card (and time) by having to stamp images again and again. But I got a great routine going where I would stamp a test image on a piece of paper to see whether the image was straight, where I might need to apply some extra pressure etc. Most of the time my first impression onto card was the only time I stamped the image after that test image. By the end of the 30 days I felt far more confident to use wood-mounted stamps again. In fact, when I came to create my latest card for the AAA Cards challenge, I immediately reached for my wood-mounted stamps!

Focussing on my own challenge using existing supplies made me very happy! I spent a LOT less on craft supplies this past month. I admired all the new releases but as I knew I wouldn’t have time to use them, I was far more restrained… in fact I can honestly say that there was no impulse buying! Well, it had to happen some time, right?

My storage system works really well. I store all my wood mounted stamps in shallow boxes. A few years ago, I photographed all of my boxes and then noted the location of each box. When I was choosing the stamp to use each day, I would flick through my photos, make my choice and quickly pull out the stamp. I was really grateful for all the time I had spent organising my stamps!

I missed die cutting! I love stamping but I also love die cutting just as much and by Day 21 I started to feel a little sad that I wasn’t creating much with them. As I work long hours and have a fairly long commute, I knew that I would not have enough time to create many cards in addition to my wood stamp challenge and DT commitments. If I ever do this challenge again, I would definitely build in ‘rest days’ where I could focus on my other supplies!

All in all, I totally enjoyed the challenge and the tips I learnt along with way. I used more wood-mounted stamps in 30 days than I have in the past three years combined and my self confidence in stamping without a stamp positioner has been restored.

You will definitely be seeing more of my wood-mounted stamps in future!

Thanks to everyone who followed along and shared kind comments with me – I really appreciate all of you!

Have a great day!

LucieG.

Crafty friends are the best

Hello everyone!

It’s time for a new challenge over at AAA Cards and this fortnight we have something new for you!

We’d like you to choose a sentiment and three items only from our AAA Cards Wheel of Fortune! Perhaps we should call that our ‘Wheel of CAS Creativity’! Anyway, we have an optional twist of ‘friends’ and our sponsor is Pink & Main.

I must confess I found it pretty challenging to select items from three separate segments as I was worried my CAS card would quickly become rather cluttered. Once I had chosen my sentiment (by Altenew), I selected quite a large image (Scrapbook Girls stamp by Denami Design) so I knew that the best way of achieving a CAS card would be to choose the colouring pens/pencils option plus something that wouldn’t compete with my large detailed image – so I chose the small embellishments. Three tiny sequins! Can you see them?!

While I really struggled with this card to begin with, I LOVE how this Wheel of CAS Creativity stretched me to think differently about supplies. Ordinarily I would never have coloured this image with my pencils, but I had to because ‘paints’ weren’t an option and so my beloved Twinkling H2Os had to stay in the cupboard! It certainly wasn’t the quickest card that I have ever made but I ended up feeling quite pleased… or maybe relieved… that my card was still CAS!

My teammates have created some beautiful designs over at AAA Cards and this fortnight our guest designer is Janet who has some wonderful cards on her blog, Swanlady Impressions – you must check it out!

Looking forward to seeing all the entries!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Go Getter

Hello Friends and Happy Saturday!

Well I did it. For the first time ever, I think, I completed Kathy Racoosin’s Daily Marker 30 Day colouring challenge! And my own personal wood stamp challenge. I’m going to share more thoughts about my personal challenge on the blog tomorrow as I learnt a LOT!

On to today’s card. I was originally going to use another flower stamp but when I saw that the theme of the new Time Out challenge was ‘unique’, I KNEW I would have something fitting in my wood mounted stamp collection!

I chose another Magenta stamp – this one is called ‘Go Getter’ – isn’t it a cute image! And look, it even includes three little horses like the image I coloured for Day 2!

I knew I’d have a suitable sentiment in my collection as I am all for celebrating our unique qualities! In the end I chose a sentiment from an older Personal Impressions/Lindsay Mason Designs clear stamp set.

I wanted to keep the card quite CAS but wanted to inject a little more colour so when I was assembling it I decided to add some of the Basic Grey patterned paper I used for my Day 2 card.

I’m also entering this into the current Inkspirational challenge – ‘use your stash’.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you return for my round up post tomorrow!

LucieG.

Flower wish

Hello everyone!

Even though we’re now in March (and by the way how did THAT happen?), the Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring challenge continues for two more days, and that means my personal wood stamp challenge also continues!

Today I’m playing along with the challenge over at both the Retro Rubber Challenge blog and the Try Stampin’ On Tuesday blog which have a shared sketch challenge.

I used a stamp from a 2006 Hero Arts set (how can that be 13 years ago?), but when I was creating the card, I felt I needed a way of extending the image to the sentiment. So I drew a stem – quite pleased with how it turned out in the end.

I added some paper pennants cut from Basic Grey and a sentiment from My Sentiments Exactly.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Share your umbrella

Hello everyone!

Today I’m playing along on two challenges using an older wood-mounted stamp – ‘Walking in the Rain’ by Art Impresssions.

As time was pretty short this evening, I kept it very simple using the colour palette from this week’s Color Throwdown Challenge (coral red, blue, green and kraft). The Case This Sketch challenge sketch calls for a sentiment in the right corner under the image, but as my image has a text frame, I decided to add three nailheads instead.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lucie G

Amazing Mother

Hello everyone!

I am back with my second Crafts-U-Love DT card for February using the two Julie Hickey stamp sets that I received: Family Sentiments* and Floral Fusion*.

Today’s card took a long time to create mainly because I got inky and then had to do a ton of fussy cutting!

I decided that I wanted to create a flowery wreath for a Mother’s Day card. Well actually it can be an ‘Any Day’ mother’s card really! I started off by stamping the sentiment in the centre of my card base and then added a few stamped swirls from the Floral Fusion set.

Then I turned my attention to creating a base panel to use for the flower images.

First, I applied three shades of purple distress oxide ink repeatedly, drying each layer with my heat tool.

As I wanted a bit of shimmer, part way through the process, I added some Cosmic Shimmer ‘Silver Dream’ powder. Ordinarily, I would stop altering the background once I had added a metallic/shimmery powder, but I wanted a little more intensity from the purples so I continued to add more ink!

Eventually I stopped and stamped the smaller outline flower a number of times before fussy cutting them out and arranging them in a circle around the sentiment.

For the leaves, I stamped the larger solid flower image using two shades of regular distress ink and then cut completely around all the petals and slotted them between the flowers.