Last Saturday was the Autumn Happy Stampers Show at Port Sunlight and I had a trip across with my friend Emma. It's a fair trek of 2.5 hours drive from here which is a bit much for me these days, there and back with a show in between so we went the night before, stayed in a cheap Travelodge, had breakfast in Port Sunlight's Garden Centre then went to the show in the beautiful hall across the road, another bite to eat before we left and back in Mansfield for 6.30. We had a great time and as always the show was fab (apart from being too hot in the hall).
I was quite proud of myself as I pretty much stuck to my shopping list for once (just a few extra stencils and 1 set of PaperArtsy JoFy stamps snuck into my basket) and the item I had at the top was a stamping press because I am finding that as I get older my hands occasionally don't do what I tell them, lol, and most importantly I have always had trouble getting really good silhouette images. There are quite a few on the market now and for various reasons I had decided on the Be Creative one from Once Upon A Stamp. Today I'm sharing my first little test using it.
As it was just a test and I didn't intend making anything with it I just stamped the cute image from Lavinia stamps onto a piece of scrap card. I forgot to photograph the first impression too and have to say it wasn't too bad actually but it still had a few bare patches in the middle so I inked up again and repeated the stamping and voila! A perfect silhouette image with no gaps! Of course, I then thought it was too good to waste so I made a mask and used Distress Oxides and a stencil to create the sun rays. I turned the post it mask round to cover the rays then used Oxides again to blend greens onto the bottom bit.
I dripped some water and dabbed it off for the speckles and I did the leaves and flowers stamping the traditional way and inked around the edges. Then I used the stamp press again to make sure I got the tiny word stamp in just the right place....perfect! Finally I added various colours of Stickles before matting and layering onto the base card.
I was delighted with my little card and I have to say I'm very pleased with the stamp press so far. I was a bit concerned it might be another gadget that would end up shoved to the back of a cupboard but I now think it's going to become one of my most used tools.
Have a good day everyone and see you again soon.
Hugs
Lesley Xx
