As I’ve said before, I struggle with cards. Oh, I’m getting better and someday (after Camp Scrap has ended) we’ll dive into how I did that. One way I did that was to embrace the very simple design:
I love how this came out – my ants and my “summer” stamped all happy… the little dotted lines and the grass-like lines. Love it – and while my instinct is to junk it up more, I know I am better off just stopping here, letting it be.
But what happens when super simple isn’t satisfying? Or what if I don’t want to make a card at all? What if I want to play with my stamps and just experiment and test stuff out? Well friends, that is your challenge today. Try your hand at getting some stamps out and grab some scraps of paper, plain white paper, or just some PLAY paper and act like a kid.
Stamp like my kids stamp.
Mix things up, layer, test things out, break in new stamps… all with no pressure or expectation of doing great things or finished projects.
To show you I really mean it, I’ve filmed myself doing this just yesterday. Please note – this is just me playing with stamps in my studio, unedited, mistakes left in. Things like me calling a whale an elephant or watercolor paper waterstock. Oh yes… no editing just play and rambling. If you wanna see (I do cover some techniques!) Here is a raw 30 minutes worth of my creative randomness:
[link to youtube]
Hooray for creative play. Looking for the stamps I used today? You can buy direct from www.lawnfawn.com, or they are available at your favorite stamp store locally or on-line. [Simon Says Stamp has a great selection!]
Today’s post is sponsored by Lawn Fawn!
If you’re looking for adorable stamps, cute papers, and a really sweet company – be sure to check them out! You’ll see some more finished projects with my stamp sets here on my blog in the upcoming weeks too. Here are links to where you can find them:
www.lawnfawn.com | www.lawnfawn.blogspot.com | www.twitter.com/lawnfawn | www.facebook.com/lawnfawn
Awesome! It is true, it’s about time I start playing with my cute, lovely, brand-new stamp collection that’s still in it’s original package! (I do use some stamps, just have a lot of recently new ones I haven’t used before.) I don’t have the time right now to watch a 30 minute video but I will somewhere today or tomorrow. Thank you for sharing this!
It’s so good to be reminded to play! Sometimes I think we get too focused on creating projects for challenges, etc. and we lose the sheer joy of playing with paper. Thanks, May! So glad I signed up for Camp Scrap!
I need to get into my craft room and play with my stamps too! I just keep buying cute ones and never get the time to play! Thanks for the creative inspiration! Your card is cute and I’m glad that you kept it simple! That ant stamp is darling!
Aww, i enjoyed so much your video. Thanks for reminding us to play some more. I’m always focus on being productive, I totally like the idea of playing and experimenting with ous stamps.
Hugs.
Loly
My first thought was I just do not have time to play. I am starting to feel the pressure of getting the table decor done for my niece’s bridal shower. My next thought was that I have so many stamps I have never used and so many techniques I have never tried or only tried once. The fact is some of these are dancing in my head for the shower project. Thus play and play with a purpose is the order of the day. Also I hope to come back and watch the video later today, but have to get some phone calls out of the way first. Thanks, May.
Have to catch the video later as I am working and stopped in for a quick peek. That is just the cutest! I love it….the ants are adorable. 🙂
One: Love the video Two: Love that I am not the only one that calls something by the wrong name! Thanks for the inspiration and the chuckle.
I have been getting more adventurous with my stamps in the past year or so. For a long time i didn’t want to use them on my cards because I was afraid to “mess up” all the hard work i had done up to the stamping point.
Hey May,
That was great to see the different ways you use items to create!
I am inspired to play today!!!
Thanks,
Linda 🙂
Um, I’m totally calling it waterstock from now on. =) Hooray for made-up words! I love this idea of just playing with my crafting stuff. I actually got a couple of art journals to do just that. I don’t do actual “art journaling”….whatever that may be =) ….. but when I just feel like playing with a technique I just open the book to a new page and try something out. None of the pages so far look “finished” but I figure eventually I’ll play with enough techniques that I’ll come up with something awesome!
This is what I like to do with new stamps too. Just play with them with no project or purpose in mind. Some of the best discoveries come from this. This was a fun half hour.
I love the idea of just playing! Thanks for the challenge to get out my stamps! I really like your card design. And I love that your hands have colour on them! that was a very fun technique spraying the ink onto your mat with a really cool effect
I’m just catching up and like so many others, the video is being put on hold, but… I have been playing with my stamps. I’m devoting my summer to cataloging my stamps and taking the rubber off the wood blocks, etc. Like any good crafter, I get sidetracked when I have so many fun stamps staring at me. I see one that will make a great card, or another that I want to use on “this” or “that” layout, so forth and so on. I can’t wait to watch the video to see what direction(s) you go. Thanks May.
Finally got a chance to play with some of my stamps – here’s a link to my blog post:
http://aplaceformyscraps.blogspot.com/2012/06/camp-scrap-stamp-play.html