TUESDAY TIPS - Kissing Technique in Stamping

Did you know there is a stamping technique called "kissing"? The process can add a textured or patterned look to a solid stamp. I achieved the above look with the kissing technique.

The basic steps are to ink a patterned stamp, such as a background stamp, then transfer the pattern to a solid stamp by pressing a solid, uninked stamp against the patterned stamp. When you stamp onto the cs, you’ll see the solid stamp image with the same pattern or texture as the background stamp.

Now, step by step:

1. Ink a patterned stamp. Any of the Stampin' Up background stamps work well, but it's best if the stamp is fairly large. Here I've inked the canvas background stamp. I only inked a portion of it because I only need to use a small area on it.

2. Then press a solid uninked stamp onto the inked-up background stamp. Doing this will transfer the inked pattern onto the solid stamp. You can see below that I pressed a solid flower from the Petal Pizzazz stamp set onto an inked-up canvas background stamp.

3. The image stamped with the solid flower stamp becomes a flower with the canvas pattern on it. Cool, huh?

There are other variations of the kissing technique.

Did you know that you can stamp a mirror image of something? Let's say I wanted to stamp two monkeys facing each other. I could use the "kissing technique" to get two monkeys to face each other.

Look at the photos below.

1. Stamp the monkey onto card stock.

2. Then ink the monkey stamp again & stamp onto a big solid stamp (I happened to have a big oval, but a large solid space on any stamp will work).

3. Huff on the stamp & press onto cs. The monkey image will be facing the reverse direction of what it normally is. If precision is important, you can use a Stamp-a-Ma-Jig to line up images. This is a fun technique when you want your image to show any 2 creatures facing each other.

Experiment with this technique & you will find other ways to kiss stamps together to achieve different looks.

Linda :)