Saturday, December 3, 2011

A Tale of Two Reindeer

I have stamps to sell or trade all the time and I know that flummouxes many people.  "How can you stand to part with even one stamp?" I am asked all the time.  Well, I have an awful lot of stamps, you see.  When I mention that I'm often told, "Well, I do too, but I don't dare get rid of any of them."  I do dare and I have no problem downsizing the ones that don't work for me.  Sometimes my taste change, or a get a similar stamp I like better, or sometimes I bought them on a whim in the first place, or sometimes I'm just tired of them, etc.  And here is how it often goes down:

I have these two reindeer stamps.  They were both bought on a whim.  One came from Michael's Craft store and I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice stamp there that appealed to me.  The other one came from an internet store that has a variety of stamps and I was just browsing around.
I liked them both equally at first, but now that I've used them I have a distinct preference for one over the other.  I like how both can be jazzed up with bling and I like how they both are thick lined stamps.  I like the striped scarf on the one reindeer because you can give it more color that way.  The other reindeer has unusual antlers that I find appealing (and that you could add more bling to!). Yet, one of these stamps really "does it" for me and the other does not.  So one of these days when I'm weeding through holiday stamps I'll pick out the one I like least and toss it into the sale pile.  If someone buys it, I won't miss it.  After all, I'll still have the other great reindeer stamp to play with.  And if someone doesn't buy it, then I'll have it around to play with some more to see if I've learned to like it any better.  Either way I come out a winner.

Now I'll share with you a quick fix.  I'm sure we've all done this at some point, where you've got the entired card completed and you decide to stamp a greeting on the inside and you louse it up!  Oh no!  All that work!  In this case, I dropped the stamp at the last second.  And it isn't horrible, but it isn't acceptable either (well, by my standards, I've received cards like this so I know other people aren't as picky, especially for an inside greeting). 
To fix it, I'll just re-stamp the greeting on another piece of cardstock and glue it over the first one.  To keep it from looking like a "fix" I'll probably do it in a colored cardstock, preferrably a color that matches something on the front.  Often I'll round the corners or use a funky edger on it.  Now see, it is all better!  I added the red lines for a little more excitement, but they weren't necessary for the fix.
The Fine Print: Reindeer in scarf by Hero Arts, Other Reindeer by Savvy Stamps, greetings by A Muse Studio, small scalloped edg with decorative scissors, large scalled edge by Fiskars, corner rounder by Marvy.

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