Article of the Month

January 2008 - Stamping a Continuous Pattern

It happens to every stamper: You find a stamp border or pattern you love—but it’s just not long enough for your project! Or maybe the pattern is longer than what you need. What to do? Here’s help: Designer LeNae Gerig created this beautiful layout featuring stamped stitches. Some of her stamped images are longer than the actual design, while others are shorter. LeNae shares her tips for getting perfect placement, every time!

Family Portrait '08
By LeNae Gerig

First, what’s the best way to arrange a long (5 1/4"), skinny strip of a stamp on your acrylic block? Here’s LeNae’s tip: “I use the grid on my cutting mat. First I square up the block on the squares on my grid mat. Then I place the acrylic stitch stamp on the block, lining it up over one of the straight lines on the grid. This just takes a few seconds, but insures that my stitches will be straight when stamped.”

Then LeNae began building her page, cutting a 7"x10" piece of brown striped paper, inking the edges black and gluing it to the left side of the brown dot background paper.

She cut a 1/2"x12" strip of white cardstock and stamped the rick rack design in brown on the length of the strip. For perfect alignment, LeNae used Post-It® Notes to secure the strip to her work surface. This prevents the narrow strip from moving while you stamp it. She started her stamped design at one end of the strip, stamping the end of the design slightly off the end of the paper strip. She re-inked her stamp, then stamped again—this time, using the clear acrylic block as her guide to aligning the stamped designs. She glued the strip onto the page, 1 1/2" from the right side.

She matted her 5"x7" photo on black cardstock, leaving a 1/8" wide border, then glued it overlapping the stamped border. (This can also hide any little mistakes in alignment!)

LeNae then stamped a portion of the large black zigzag stitch along the bottom of the brown mat and again on the left side. To stamp only a portion of a design, simply ink only the portion you want to stamp—it’s as easy as that! She added inked journaling strips on the left side of the brown mat and secured each with a mini brad.

Glue a page title to the top of the brown mat and embellish with several “x” stitches on each end. This is easily accomplished by only applying black ink to the last four stitches on the stamp.

Supplies:

• Chocolate Use ’Em For Anything Papers
• Chocolate Silk Flowers
• Chocolate Brads Pack
• Stamped Stitches
• Acrylic Block
• Versafine™ ink pads: Vintage Sepia & Onyx Black
• white and black cardstock
• 1/16" hole punch