Stamp off to get more from your ink pads!

I love Stampin’ Up!’s range of colours but I know it’s not always possible for everyone to have them all. And even if you do, that’s only 50 colours to choose from – and everyone can always use more colour in their life!

Did you know there’s a way to get even more colours for your crafting without spending any more money? How? By using a technique called Stamping Off.

Whenever I do a workshop I like to give all the guests at least one little instruction card to take home with them as a reminder of the techniques they’ve learned. This is especially helpful for new stampers but even the experienced ones love the visual record because they can stamp their own samples on the other side.

Here’s an example of my ‘Stamping Off’ instruction card with the sample side stamped:

I love how good the little reindeer from Joyous Celebrations (page 7 of the Holiday Catalogue) looks when he’s been stamped off.

In this sample I simply inked up the reindeer with Bravo Burgundy ink and then kept on stamping without re-inking. Each time I stamped a reindeer friend he was a slightly different colour to the last. I could also have stamped a bit more randomly so that it looked like a group of different coloured reindeers and not a group lined up from light to dark but I didn’t think of that at the time.

I particularly like the look that Stamping Off gives to greetings, so here are a couple of samples:

This one uses the now retired Totally Tools, but the greeting is from Best Dad Ever, which is still available (page 27), and it’s stamped in Garden Green.

And all these stamps come from the sadly retired Grunge Rock. This time I stamped in Soft Suede.

While I love the look of the fading colours, you can also use this technique to just deliberately stamp with a colour a few shades lighter than the ink pad is intended to be. If you have a colour that’s just too intense for your project then stamp it off onto scratch paper once or twice first, then stamp normally. Each time you need to add ink, just stamp it off before stamping on your project and you’ll consistently get the lighter colour.

I’d love for you to give this technique a try and don’t forget to show me the results.

Cheers

Genna

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