Ancient history

I got ahead of myself here, and started my blog before I got a chance to document a project. I'm just excited to get it started!

So I thought I'd write out a brief history of how I got into stamping and where it's taken me.

A few years ago, a friend (and Stampin' Up! hobby demo) invited me to an SU! demonstration. At first, I was really not interested - I figured it was one more thing to spend way too much money on (ha. ha ha. HAHAHA), and I figured I'd get sucked in by the idea of a "cheap" hobby (I mean, paper and ink - how bad could it be?) and end up spending way more money than I'd intended on little purchases (and I was oh so right about that).

A week or two after the demonstration, I remembered that I used to make bookmarks and Christmas ornaments with stamps at my grandma's house - my cousins and sisters and I were really into heat-embossing. I asked my grandma about her supplies, and she gave me a big Rubbermaid of stamps, paper, bookmark tassels, ink, every color of embossing powder, and a heat gun. I was in business, right?

Well, pretty much as soon as I started playing around with her stuff, I started thinking back to the cool stamp designs and techniques I'd seen at the demonstration. Coordinating paper and ink! Current, non-cutesy (we'll get back to that later) stamp designs! Rotary cutters that cut in straight lines! Sure enough, I had to place an order.

I was so excited about stamping, I talked about it all over the place. And made Christmas cards (ohhhh, the Christmas cards... they were baaaad) and proudly told everyone I'd made them. My family was so encouraging, and suddenly boxes of stamping supplies came pouring out of closets. It seemed everyone had tried it at some point, and wanted to pass along the supplies they were no longer using. Here's where the cutesy stuff comes back in - I quickly reached a critical mass of ballerina tutu bunnies and teddy bears in sunhats and unicorns with rainbows.

Oddly enough, rather than making me feel overwhelmed with Too Much Stuff, it made me more determined to pare down to stamps and colors I'd really use, and shop around to create my own distinct style.

Long story short, I spent a LOT of time and money building up a nice stock of SU! paper, ink, stamps, and embellishments. It was a great introduction to the hobby. More recently, I've been introduced to Papertrey Ink, which is, I think, a great next/current step. They started coming out with coordinating papers/inks/ribbon at the beginning of this year, and I've really loved every color they've come out with. The quality of their paper and ribbon is outstanding, the ink is fantastic to use on just about anything, and their stamps... oh, their stamps. I love that they're unmounted - they're so much easier to store in their CD cases; I love that they're clear and so easy to position; I love the way their designers use that ability to design fantastic sets that you can use to build scenes or customize characters in infinite ways.

Anyway, that's where I am now! I hope you'll get a good feel for my style of stamping really soon!