Oriental Trading Flower Stamp Set Review

Hi there! I hope you're all having a fantastic week :)

Today I wanted to share my experience using the extremely affordable Flower Stamp set (item #65/80755) that was provided to me from Oriental Trading.  If you haven't checked out their site, you need to! They have THOUSANDS of great products, many of which are related to crafting. My experience is with this stamp set only, but I'm sure that other stamps that they offer would have equal performance and bang for your buck :)

My package from Oriental Trading arrived quickly and everything was packed so carefully inside with a good amount of padding.  Nothing was damaged and my order was complete. This is a clear stamp set measuring 4" x 4" and contains 12 stamps.  I love that you can mix and match to build your own flowers and scenes; I just knew that this set was going to be FUN!

(butterfly card was made with pigment inks)

When I first tried using these clear stamps, I noticed that they didn't stick to my acrylic block very well, but that was a very easy fix with Tombo Mono Multi Glue.  I squirted some glue on the back, rubbed it in and waited for it to dry before trying again. The second time it stuck better:) If you notice after a while your clear stamps lose their stick, just try this quick fix and it'll make quite a difference.

I found that different dyes worked better that others. I had the best luck with pigment inks and for the watercolor effect, Distress Inks worked great.  You don't have to press down on the stamp very hard to get a great image; in fact, pressing down too hard made my images blurry.  

In the card below, I stamped using Distress Inks and misted with a tiny bit of water to make the ink run just a bit and make a cool effect.  Make sure to use watercolor paper when doing this technique ;)  You can find the blog post to this card here.

Here is a card that is similar to the card above.  I used pigment ink for the stem and leaves; on the flowers (from left to right) dye ink, pigment ink and dye ink.  If you compare it to the card above, you can see the different looks you get with different inks. Different, but still pretty :)

Another feature I really loved about this set is that that some of the stamps are solid while others have blank spaces. I colored these two flowers with Copic markers and decided to leave the leaf without color for no other reason than to keep the focus on the flowers themselves. I love how swirly one end of the stem is :)

Positives about this product:

*Price, price price!  These babies are incredibly affordable!
*Versatility--mix and match as you see fit!
*Let's just face it....they're adorable
*Includes both solid stamps and stamps that have blank space to use a variety of inks and markers/pencils to color.

Not as positive:  

*Overall the only problem I had with the stamps was that the backs of them didn't have much stick, but I was able to use glue to help solve that problem a bit.

*If you push too hard the image is blurry.

There you have it! I hope you've learned something new with this post. What are you waiting for?! Head on over to Oriental Trading to see what they have :)

Thanks for sharing part of your day with  me!

Dancing Ballerina -- DS4J New Release

Hello friends!

Today DigiStamps4Joy is releasing some new images (spoiler: they're adorable!). I made this card using their new Ballerina image.

Wow! She's just beautiful! As soon as I saw her, I knew what I was going to do.  I colored her with Copic markers and added a few dots using Liquid Pearls. The sentiment happened to go perfectly with the image, but it is not a DS4J image.  

Head on over to the blog to see what the rest of my teammates came up with and make sure to stop by the shop to purchase one (or five) images when you're there! There are hundreds to choose from and they're all very reasonably priced, so you're sure to find something you love :)

Supplies:
Ballerina image by DS4J
Copics: T01, R 81, 83, 85; E 000, 00, 02, 25, 27, 47
A*muse Studio Dance Stamp Set
Perfect Pearls in Silver Pearl

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Submissions:
Anything Goes for Kids
ABC Challenge--P is for Pretty in Pink
Alphabet Challenge Blog--N is for No Design Papers

Best Fishes + Prismacolor + NON August Challenge

Hi there!

August's theme of "Fun in the Sun" is going on at Naughty or Nice Challenges!  The team is excited to see what you come up with for this one and there are loads of possibilities, so whether you take the naughty or the nice route, we want to see your take on the challenge.

I love this stamp set even though I've only used it once.  It just reminds me of simpler times before technology has taken up so much of our lives.  This scene is just so beautiful and peaceful to me. It's a way of life that all kids should experience at some point :)

This is a pretty simple one.  I didn't get a great picture before it was sent off to my mom's coworker who was retiring, but you can see everything that was on it.  I stamped the image and colored it in with Prismacolors.  I didn't feel the need to add anything else to this one. I wanted it to be simple and without a lot of embellishments, just like the image :)

Supplies:

Flower Soft Moments in Time Best Fishes
Prismacolor Colored Pencils
Neenah Solar White Cardstock
Blending Stump
Baby oil
Memento Tuxedo Black Ink

Head on over the the Naughty or Nice blog to see what my teammates came up with and to join us in the fun! Thanks for stopping by today!