Article of the Month
April 2008
Using Alphabet Stamps
Paper crafters love personalization—it’s why we spend hours creating scrapbook pages, cards, tags and other projects that say exactly what we want and look exactly how we want them to.
So just how can paper crafters include a personalized greeting or message on projects while still creating a polished, finished look? The answer is easy: Use alphabet stamps! With a classic looking stamp set like Plain & Simple ABC’s, you can create hand-crafted, personalized journaling, greetings and labels all without messy handwriting or frustrating computer journaling.
How? Just peel the stamps from between the plastic sheets and arrange them on an acrylic block to spell out a word (be sure to arrange the letters in reverse order so the word stamps correctly when the block is turned over to stamp), or use just a single letter stamp. You can arrange letters unevenly for a fun look, or place a piece of notebook paper under your clear acrylic block to help you line them up straight. Stamp several words for a page title or greeting, mix the letter stamps with another set of alphabet stamps in a different font, or combine the stamps with monograms or other methods of lettering for an artsy mixed media look.
Want a great tip? When shopping for alphabet stamps, select a set that includes more than one stamp of popular letters—it makes it much easier to stamp words like “happy”, as designer Laura Nicholas did in this great card example. Laura used a mixture of lowercase and uppercase alphabet stamps to stamp the word “happy” twice, then used monograms to spell out “b-day”. She finished off the greeting with a stamped “2” accompanied by monograms for “U!”. The result? A personalized message that’s fun, yet looks polished. Give it a try—you’ll love the look!Happy Happy Birthday 2 U
By Laura Nicholas
To create her custom-made card, Laura placed the card with the fold at the left, covered the card front with citrus stripes paper (stripes aligned vertically) and trimmed the edges even with the card. She then inked the edges brown.
Laura punched out the monograms to spell “b-day”, using the dot of an “i” as a hyphen, and sanded the edges lightly. She cut a 5” x 1 1/2” strip of white cardstock and inked the edges brown, then matted the top and bottom only on teal paper, trimming closely. Laura centered “b-day” on the cardstock strip, then glued the strip to the center of the card front.
Next, Laura arranged Plain & Simple ABC stamps to spell the word “happy” on her acrylic block (remember to place the letters in reverse order!), then stamped the word twice with black ink onto white cardstock. She cut the cardstock to 2 1/2” rectangles and inked the edges brown, then stamped the number “2” onto white cardstock. After cutting out the “2”, Laura inked the edges brown and matted it and one of the “happy” words onto orange citrus paper, trimming closely. She matted the second “happy” onto teal paper. For accent, Laura inserted citrus mini brads at the end of each “happy” before adhering at the top of the card with foam tape.
To complete the card front, Laura punched out the “U” and exclamation mark monograms and sanded the edges lightly. She added a small yellow silk flower to the “U” with a pink brad, then glued the monograms to the bottom right side of the card front. Laura added the matted “2” with foam tape to the left of the monograms.
Inside the card, Laura added a 5” x 2 1/2” piece of the remaining stripes paper with inked edges to the card bottom. She inked the edges of a 5” x 3/4” strip of white cardstock and matted the top and bottom on teal paper before gluing over the top edge of the striped paper. Laura punched out the monograms to spell the word “TRUE” and lightly sanded the edges, then centered the monograms across the white cardstock strip. She used Plain & Simple ABC’s stamps to spell out the rest of her message across the top of the card inside.Laura’s Supplies:
