Thursday, June 30, 2011

I Made Stamps!!

I bought a Teresa Collins Stampmaker a few months ago with some money I had put aside for scraping goodies. I have not had a chance to use it and so I put it on my first set of summer goals to figure it out.
FIRST: I want to say it is pretty easy to do all the steps and watching videos online really helped me out. I was super worried that I would not be able to make it work, but the step by step videos were great. My favorite one was posted by Psychomoms on You Tube and is called "Part II - Teresa Collins Stampmaker, Making the stamp." This video is in real time so I watched in once before I got started and than when I was making my stamp I played it again to watch her do the steps as I was doing them. I found it really helpful.

NEXT: You have to make sure your negative is super super super dark. My printer is a photo printer and older. It made a pretty good negative, BUT it had a light patch in the middle which was a problem and it made some of my stamps not turn out.  Here is a picture of what you want your negative to look like (this is taken from my word document and looks very dark like it should...you do not want to be able to see your finger when you print on the negative paper).
Most of these fonts are from KevinandAmanda.com
FINAL RESULTS: I tried to make all these stamps during my first try. (I am not giving step by step because I am not an expert and need much more practice to be able to do that). It is all using one pack of the goo stuff that makes the stamp (I am so technical!) Some turned out OK. They are not perfect. I think I need improvement in two areas:

1. A better negative with a more reliable printer.
2. Wash the stamp much better and more carefully before the final steps.

Here is the stamp I like best:

See the little dots by s? I think this is where I needed better washing!
I made this stamp for my brother-in-law's wedding as I am trying to make some gift tags for their favors. I am not perfectly happy with it BUT I am thinking that using those stamp markers instead of an ink pad might make it easy to avoid the flaws in the stamp. That and more practice and I think I will enjoy the machine. Stay tuned to see if I have more success.

4 comments:

  1. Cool! Congrats to you on getting it out and giving it a try!

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  2. I like the look of those stamps. Great job

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  3. You are brave. I am impressed they don't look bad at all especially for the first try. I may have to try it. Glad you stopped by my blog, I am now your newest follower. Looking forward to more projects. TFS Traci

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Inspiration & Smiles from you are so welcomed.