Typewriter Stamp Roundup

Sharing Dan's anniversary card yesterday got me thinking about how many typewriter stamps I've been seeing lately.

There's the one I used, which is from We R Memory Keepers:

There's this new wood-mount lovely from Hero Arts:

Hero Arts also has this useful cling set where you can change out the words on the typing paper:

Or, you can get their background stamp with typewriters and typewriter keys flying around all over the place (I'm not so sure about this one.):

Also in the change-out-the-sentiment family are these sets from the new stamping company Lawn Fawn:

And there are tons of super vintagey typewriter stamps, like this one from Technique Tuesday:

And this one by October Afternoon:

So, what do you think of this trend? I mostly just like thinking about the crafters of the future who will be using all sorts of vintage Kindle and i-Pad-themed products on their projects.

2-Year Anniversary

One of my favorite stamping techniques is to stamp the same image on different papers and then cut them apart in order to piece them together, but I almost never remember to try it. It happened by accident on this card, because after I stamped this little typewriter directly on the book paper, it looked all wrong, and the sentiment wasn't clear enough. Then, I stamped it on the deep red paper and cut it out, but it still didn't seem to look right. THEN, I realized that of COURSE typewriter paper isn't the same color as the typewriter! So I stamped the whole thing again on cream paper and cut out just the paper part. To make it look even more dimensional, I stuck the typing paper image directly to the paper, and I adhered the typewriter image with Pop Dots.


The best part about this card is that it wasn't until I took this detail shot that I noticed something funny about the particular circle of dictionary paper I had randomly punched out:

It says "SEXUAL INTERCOURSE"! On my anniversary card to my husband! Do you think he'll notice?

Quick Birthday Calendar

You know you're too caught up in crafting when you start letting your products dictate your projects instead of the other way around. After I got this beautiful 7 Gypsies stamp set of month titles, I decided to put together a quick and easy birthday calendar to keep track of important dates throughout the year.

I found this Conrad Ring Book from Creative Imaginations at my local scrapbook store, thinking its 6 chipboard pages would be just right for a 12-month calendar. Then, I chose papers from My Mind's Eye new Stella and Rose collection for each month, took it all home, and went to work.

Instructions:
1. Use a paper trimmer to cut patterned papers to the size of the chipboard pages, and round the corners with a corner rounder.

2. Punch holes in the top of the pages to match the holes in the chipboard pages. (If you use a Crop-a-Dile, you can punch all the pages at once.)

3. Stamp month titles on the top of each page with black ink.

4. Format lists of date numbers in word processor and print on printable transparencies. You'll need 7 lists of 31, 4 lists of 30, and 1 list of 29 for February (to go ahead and factor in the leap year). Trim apart the lists and attach to the patterned paper pages with staples. (You could avoid the stapled look by printing right on the pages, fussing with a clear adhesive, or trying to hide the adhesive with embellishments, but I was going for quick and easy.)

5. Adhere the patterned paper pages to the chipboard pages. Sand the edges if paper hangs off the sides. Assemble the pages and secure them with jump rings. I assembled mine so that January through June all face forward, and you can turn the whole calendar around to flip July through December.

6. Write in all your important dates!

I had to scour Facebook to collect a bunch of birthdays I didn't already know, and I still need to do a little detective work to find the rest, but once I'm done, I'll no longer have to rely on my memory (or my husband's) to be prepared for family events.

I'll probably eventually embellish this a little. I'm sure I'll at least tie some ribbons on the jump rings in between the pages. But for now, I like the simplicity. The stamps and papers feel ornate enough as they are.