customized sentiments

One of the great things about stamping is that you can customize your projects for whatever occasion or person that you are making a card or other project for. But, it gets better than that! You can take sentiment stamps and customize them by using selective inking, masking, and creating combinations so that you get the look and perfect message that you want to send. Your sentiment collection will get a whole lot bigger once you start looking at what you can do with them in this whole new way!

For all of the cards that I am sharing today, I changed the original sentiment in some way to customize it for my project.

For this first card, I combined the "for you" sentiment from the Calligraphy Classics set with one of the "praying for you" sentiments from the Keep it Simple: Praying for You set.

(click on any of the pictures in my blog posts to see them larger)

For some stamps, it is very easy to selectively ink just part of the stamp. Selectively inking means that you use your ink pad to only ink a portion of the stamp that you want to use. For a sentiment like the "praying for you" in the Keep it Simple: Praying for You set, it is simple to just ink up the "praying for" portion of the stamp and leave the "you" portion uninked.

Helpful tip: Whenever you are doing selective inking on your stamps, make sure that the stamp is completely clean so that you don't accidentally stamp impressions where you don't want them.

In the case of this "for you" sentiment from the Calligraphy Classics set, it is a bit more tricky to ink up just the "you" portion of the stamp that I want to use. I am going to mask off the "for" on this stamp with some tape. I am using some washi tape that I have in this example, but you could use scotch tape or masking tape as well.

Literally cover the portion of the stamp that you don't want to use with tape. You can see here that I covered the "for" on this stamp.

Now ink up your stamp (excuse my messy and well loved acrylic block here...!) while leaving the tape in place.

Peel the tape off and your stamp is perfectly and selectively inked for your project.

I stamped the "you" onto this project and then added the "praying for" right before it. Now I have the perfectly customized sentiment for this card.

The Keep it Simple Series in general is one that has so many sentiments that you can combine and customize with other sentiments in your collection.

Next I used a sentiment from the Movers & Shakers Sentiments set and combined it with the "rainbow" and "s" dies from the new Make it Market Mini Kit: Sunshine & Rainbows. There are so many great word die cuts available now that are perfect to use sentiment stamps in your collection. Spend some time exploring what you have and what die cut word and sentiment combinations would work well.

 I covered the "rainbows" word on the sentiment stamp with tape, inked it up, removed the tape, and then stamped it onto the white cardstock that I stenciled the rainbow design onto.

I added the die cut "rainbows" in kraft cardstock underneath the stamped sentiment. There are quite a few word die cuts that have coordinating stamps that coordinate with them, but now you can expand your options even more.

For this last card, I used the "feel better soon" sentiment from the Inside & Out: Well Wishes set.

For my card design, I decided to use just the "feel better" portion of the sentiment. The "soon" is very close to the dotted line and so it doesn't work well to try and ink around it. I added a piece of tape over the word, inked up the stamp, removed the tape, and stamped just the "feel better" onto the white cardstock over the flower bouquet.

Sometimes there isn't a need to add more and it makes more sense to keep it simple. Use the selective inking/masking technique to add only just what you need. In the Inside & Out: Well Wishes set alone there are so many sentiments that would work to pick just a part to use on a project.

Now you have a little inspiration to look at your sentiment collection in a whole new way and customize your sentiment perfectly for your next projects.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Supplies:

all supplies from Papertrey Ink unless noted

Praying for You Card

size: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

stamps: Calligraphy Classics, Keep it Simple: Praying for You, Meadow Greens

ink: True Black, Ripe Avocado, Fresh Snow

cardsotck: white, kraft

other: sequins

A Thousand Rainbows Card

size: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

Make it Market Mini Kit: Sunshine & Rainbows

stamps: Movers & Shakers sentiments

ink: True Black, Pure Poppy, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, Simply Chartreuse, Enchanted Evening

cardstock: white, kraft

other: Rainbow XL die, rhinestone (Pebbles)

Feel Better Bouquet Card

size: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

stamps: Friendship Jar Flowers, Inside & Out: Well Wishes

ink: True Black, Ripe Avocado, Hawaiian Shores, Ocean Tides, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, Dark Chocolate

cardstock: white, kraft

other: Rustic Jute button twine, Edgers #4 die, eyelets (Recollections)