Process Post:  Shimelle’s Layer on Layer on Layer, Class #8 – Stamping

When I first watched this video, my thought was “Oh boy.”  I’m not one to stamp on my layout, but I have been known to stamp and precision cut images to use in a layout.  I decided to pass over this lesson and work on the doilies layout instead.

When I finished with all the videos, I kept coming back to this stamping lesson.  I had a cute set of photography stamps designed by Brandi Kincaid, and I had been thinking about creating a layout about my beginnings in sports photography.  I set to work.

I couldn’t find the first sports photo I took in 1972, so that had to go to the list of things to journal about.  I researched the name of my first camera — that also was in the journaling list.

I knew I needed to convert the lesson to a two page layout because of the size of pictures I wanted to include.  I searched through the photos I had taken at my daughters’ gymnastics meets over the years.  I picked four images, including the first stop-action image that I had really liked and looked good.  Then I found three images from my Vikings photos that I had been shocked to capture.  A little Vicki Boutin background paper from Color Story and Color Kaleidoscope finished the photo mats.  Now to the hard part, the stamps.

I pulled out the Brandi Kincaid set, stamped some images, personalized them, and did my least favorite thing in the world:  precision cutting.  I wished my precision cutting friend, Candace lived next door to me to relieve me of this task.  Alas, she lives on the other side of Wisconsin from me. So I bucked up, channeled my inner Candace and cut away.

Next I searched my stamp index, looking for sports related images I was sure I had.  Struck out big time.  Search on photography key words in my index, and found the Ali Edwards Watching Story set.  A couple Everyday Explorer Co sets (Markup, Scrap It, Try Your Best) helped me realize that I didn’t want to tell a sport story as much as I was telling my personal development as a photographer.  Put that on the journaling list along with my other notes. I rounded out my stamps by pulling out all my Title Builder stamp sets and hunted down appropriate words to the new story I was going to tell.

For ink, I picked a red to match Sarah’s leotard in one of the pictures, black and purple to match Rachel’s leotards (the purple also matched well with the Vikings uniforms), and a turquoise for contrast.  I marked out my stamping region on the white cardstock and set to work, randomly stamped the larger images first, and rotating the colors among the stamps.  I worked to the smaller stamps, filling in gaps.  When that all dried, I added the photo blocks and cut images.

Journaling came easy because I had been thinking about the new story as I stamped images.  I created the journaling block with the title, and pasted it in.  I decided against using enamel dots.  Instead I used my Wink of Stella pens in clear and yellow to add stars in gaps and shine to the camera lenses.  The layout was done, it was 12:30 am, and I went to bed happy that the layout was done.  I wasn’t thrilled with the outcome, but it was another bucket list story put to bed.

When I set up to photograph the layout this morning, I was surprised by the various pieces of serendipity in the layout.  All the stamping was random, but certain words and images worked well to accent the nearby photo.  Like looking at my photos the day after a meet or a game, I was surprised by what I had captured/created.  I quite like the layout now.