MY FIRST TUTORIAL!!!

I recieved this email from the lovely Liz:

I was wondering how you're able to mask your images so perfectly over the oval stamps from A Muse. Are you stamping the image onto a Post-It, cutting the image and then stamping the oval over her feet? I did some masking on a stamp recently and I ended up getting little gaps. Does that make sense?

The answer to this is a fun trick I figured out for my little old self (pat pat pat ... myself on the back). I have actually been thinking of doing this as a tutorial for a while -- as I haven't seen anyone else do one. I thought, why the heck not? Anyway, those gaps are one of my stamping pet peeves ... so annoying. So here's my solution. It's not rocket science but I love the end result.

Steps One and Two.
Stamp your image and mask it. There are a jillion and one tutorials on masking so I'll skip that. I will say that I am only slightly careful with my mask edges. I am going to fix it later AND 99% of the time my main image is in black or dark brown so if there's a little bleed over on the LINES of the image I don't care... as long as the OPEN part of the image is clean.


Steps Three and Four.
Stamp your oval (or whatever) over top your mask then remove the mask. It always helps to stamp the mask image over the sticky part of the post-it. I'm also a BIG fan of Tombo Mono *REMOVABLE* Adhesive (the green one). I use this A LOT especially if my cheap-y post-it isn't sticky anymore. Sometimes it leaves a residue but it always rubs off with my finger or adhesive remover.


Last Steps ...
Now do you see those white gaps around her feet? Those drive me NUTTY! No matter how closely I've trimmed the mask or how carefully I've stamped ... I always get some amount of this. Here's the fun part. Take your ink pad (the color you stamped the oval in) and your blender pen and color in the gaps. I DO NOT use my marker for this step though it might seem the obvious thing to do. There always seems to be just the slightest variation in color between the ink pad and marker. This variation is even MORE noticeable if you color/stamp them right next to each other.


That's it! I hope it makes sense. I know this tip is not the most genius thing in the whole world (nor maybe even is it tutorial-worthy) but it has given me MUCHO satisfaction. I hope it answers your question, Liz, and maybe it's interesting to some of the rest of you fab stampers out there.

Here's the card I finished up with that image ...

The sentiment and uber-useful small oval are by A Muse and Emmybella is by Stamping Bella, the doodle on the cocoa layer is by Stampin' Up! The patterned paper is basic gray's scarlett letter (6x6). I also paper pieced the big shopping bag in her hand. I used white craft for the sentiment and embossed it in detail white EP. I also used white craft ink for the doodle and embossed that with IIEP. There's clear glaze pen on her bags and shoes and stardust gel pen on her shirt. The ribbon is may arts and the antique copper brads are by making memories. I think that covers it.

I hope this was fun and, above all, coherent! Please, please, please leave FEEDBACK. It makes sense to me but maybe it's all in my head ... what do y'all think?