Connected Hearts

Recently I have started looking at my stamps with a different eye - I have been looking at individual elements like words, letters and the bits and pieces that make up a stamp design.  I have started to perform a bit of "surgery" and I'm cutting the stamps apart to make them even more versatile.  I might not love a particular stamp as a whole, but parts of them may be quite useful.  As long as the elements have a bit of room to cut them apart you can do it easily with our Microtip scissors.  If it's tight, stretch them to make it easier to cut apart.  You can easily reassemble them on a block so that they look like they were originally.  They stamp up just fine.

If you look at the stamp I used for the thought bubble in the card below, it's the "thanks" stamp on the bottom left.  I simply cut the words out - now I have 2 stamps that are much more versatile!  I can put other words in the thought bubble and use the word "thanks" without the thought bubble.  This is especially useful when teaching classes.  You can put the elements on different blocks so there is no need to "mask".  Flowers can be cut off of stems and stamped in 2 different colors.

 I also discovered a great inexpensive way to add a bit of bling to the center of my flowers.  I simply used my 1/8 or 1/4 inch hole punches with our awesome glitter paper or Shimmer trim!  The bonus is that it keeps the card flat so there is no problem needing extra postage! It's also much cheaper than sparkles and we have a number of colors.  So save your scraps. You can attach them with either mini glue dots or the Bonding Memories Glue pen.

Here is my Stamp of the Month-Wild About Love card for my February classes. The classes are after Valentine's Day so I'm using it for a Get Well card. I'm giving my customers other choices for the words since the card is so versatile. I used the grass stamp from B1441 Buggy Love in Topiary to tie in with the bit of the new Topiary ribbon.  The flowers are Cricut cuts from Art Philosophy pg 29 at .60 and .70. The paper is Balloon Ride bulk with a small strip of the 2nd pattern.  The other stamps used are A1146 Sincere Expressions and D1531 from the Artiste Collection.  I also used Bronze Shimmer Trim and the centers for the 3 smaller flowers are punched from the matching glitter paper scraps.