Essential Stamps

Welcome Back

Today’s article is all about stamps. I am going to give you a list of the sorts of stamps and elements that make for good design. Exactly what images you buy will be down to personal taste, as will be how you use them.

My favorite designer is Anna Griffin, and from her I have learnt that a good card/page design is made up of a few essential elements.

• Background; create an overall pattern as a background to your main images
• Cartouche; Frames
• Salutation; Wording/ text for greeting etc
• Motif; This would be your main image
• Boarder; use for edges or frames
• Embellishment; extra feature to enhanse the appeal of your project.

 

For many years I collected stamps based on ‘Ohh that’s nice’ and I bought it. The problem with that approach is without at least some planning you end up with a large collection of images that simply do not go with each other. This was brought home to me most obviously when  I started taking part in swaps over on the Stamping Mad Forum www.stampingmadforum.co.uk As soon as I tried to make a card/ATC/Moo to a theme I realised that my images simply didn’t go together! Ahhhh. Once I had collected some of Anna’s stamps it was incredible what a differrence using images that were designed to compliment each other made on the finished cards. 

From then on, whenever I buy any image it is definately with a mind as to what it will go with. I have mentioned before that I take a ringbinder of photocopied images from the stamps I have, with me when I go shopping. That way I can see if the image I am considering will ‘go with’ what I already have. It can also help if you like a particular designer as collecting images from a range by them are more likely to co-ordinate.

 

Links

My current favourite designers are

• Anna Griffin http://www.annagriffin.com/ for her antique botanicals
• Katzelkraft stamps http://www.katzelkraft.fr/index.php for their flourishes, birds, flowers and collage images

 

Best wishes and thanks for reading

 

Billie xx