STAMPING 101

Article of the Month
March 2008

Journaling With Stamps

From party invitations to handmade cards and scrapbook pages, handwritten words or messages frequently appear on paper-crafted projects. Forget the time-consuming rulers and pencil lines, though—journaling stamps make it super simple to add personal messages.

Notice the cool journaled border down the right side of this layout by designer Laura Nicholas? Instead of worrying about writing straight, Laura stamped a journaling block several times down the white cardstock to create straight lines for her journaling. For a decorative look, she stamped stars next to her journaling block and also incorporated symbols, artistic swirls and word journaling stamps on her page. Her secret to perfect placement of lines, stars and other elements? Clear acrylic stamps!

Remember
By Laura Nicholas

Laura started by selecting the citrus stripes paper as her background, placing the stripes vertically. She cut a 12” x 8 3/4” piece of teal textured paper and inked the edges with black ink. Laura glued the teal paper across the center of the stripes paper, creating the look of a striped frame. She used a black pen to add stitching along the top and bottom edges of the teal paper, then added an orange mini brad in each corner of the teal paper for an accent.

Next, Laura matted her photo onto white cardstock and trimmed closely, creating a thin frame to help brighten up the dark photo. She matted the photo once more on black cardstock, then trimmed the mat to 1/8”.

Laura centered this matted photo on an 8 3/4” x 7 3/4” piece of green textured paper with a torn bottom edge, then inked the edges. She added a length of orange sheer ribbon across the bottom of the green paper, taping the ends to the back. For added texture and dimension, Laura tied a bow of sheer ribbon and with long tails and attached it to the center of the ribbon length using a Zot™.

Laura added accents of small silk flowers with brads over the ribbon, then glued the green mat centered on the teal paper, 5/8” from the left edge of the page. She stamped a bracket on each side of the black photo mat and used a black pen to accent the brackets with pen stitching.

Next, Laura stamped the arrow onto white cardstock and cut it out. She inked the edges, then placed the arrow on scrap paper and stamped the swirl design and the word “remember” on it. Laura added a teal mini brad to the end of the arrow and used foam tape to adhere it on the top left edge of the green paper.

Laura stamped the word “Location” on white cardstock, then lined up the top line of the block next to it and stamped. She trimmed this to a rectangle with only one line, wrote in the location with a black pen and added a teal mini brad to each end. Laura used foam tape to adhere this to the bottom right of the striped paper.

For the journaling block, Laura cut a 2 1/2” x 12” strip of white cardstock and glued a 1/2” wide strip of black cardstock down the left edge. Beginning at the bottom, she repeated the star stamp up the left side of the white paper, next to the black edge. She then repeatedly stamped the shorter lines stamp to create lines for journaling, re-inking the stamp each time. Laura stamped the word “Notes” on the top line of the block and used a black pen to write in her journaling. She glued the journaled strip to right side of the striped paper.

Laura’s Supplies: