Season’s greeting to BoBunny blog readers!
How are you all doing in preparing for holiday celebration?
We celebrate Christmas at our house, and this year I have four albums to make for gift giving. Several things I am doing to ensure I get the albums done on time – they are all 8x8 in size, are simple in design, and use coordinating BoBunny patterned papers. Coordinating cardstock stickers, journaling cut outs and stamps combine to make a super album for gift giving. The last album on my "to do" list is the one I am sharing today. I am still awaiting photos, but that's okay because I intend for this post to be technical in nature, and hopefully it will encourage you to use your BoBunny acrylic stamps in a new way.
Paints mix to create any color you need, and are usually less expensive than ink pads for the “mileage”. Today I want to show you how to achieve coordinating stamped images for your projects, without investing in many inkpads.
I love paint. From the time I was a little girl with my paint by number pictures, to adulthood - using paints for not only color on my walls, but also for crafts such as ceramics, fabric painting, and other projects. Long before I began scrapbooking I had acquired quite a collection of acrylic paints, mostly artist brands such as Grumbacher and Liquitex. I love the thickness, or
viscosity, of these particular paint brands. The thicker, artist paints are well suited for stamping with acrylic stamp designs. Frugal tip: buy artists paints during a sale, or use a coupon - adding primary and secondary colors to your collection first, along with neutrals. This will give you a great base of paints for mixing. Often, I find I do not have an ink pad in the exact color I need, but when I reach into my drawers of paints, I can often find a color, or a combination of two or three, to create the perfect color needed for my project. If you prefer not to mix paints at all, I highly recommend stocking up on a variety of pre-mixed shades.
The page spread example shown is created for my nephew, a 21 yr. old who has been wanting an album since his brother received one last year for graduation. The “kid” has always had his hands in a motor or tinkering with some other project, BoBunny’s Grease Monkey papers are the perfect choice for him. If I do not have the photos when beginning a gift mini album, I don’t sweat it, and pick a paper line that will appeal to the recipient.
Two BoBunny Stamp & Store sets accompany the Grease Monkey collection wonderfully: “distress Me Out” and “Write On!” The stamp designs lend themselves well to paint application – if you have too much paint on your stamp, you achieve greater distress and even texture, which is great for a masculine, distressed look.
DecoArt offers a “Stamping Medium” that allows you to stamp with acrylic paints and obtain crisp images. If you are using craft paints which have less viscosity, such as Americana, FolkArt and Apple Barrel – you will likely be more pleased with your paint stamped image if you use a stamping medium to obtain a sharper image.
The stamping medium is mixed with the acrylic paint 50/50 and will thicken your average craft paint. Memory Makers brand paint could also benefit by adding stamping medium, although not as much as needed. It is important to note that the stamping medium will not alter the color of your paint.
Some tips for stamping with acrylic. Place your acrylic stamp design on the block, and use a foam brush applicator to apply paint to the acrylic design. Go light on the paint, or stamp off on scrap paper or newspaper before applying to your project. I recommend stamping your image on scrap paper first to get a feel for how it will look, and determine if you need more or less paint.
Also, unlike stamping with ink and acrylics, you obtain a more crisp image stamping with paint on a hard surface, whereas a thin sheet of foam backing is recommended under acrylic/ink stamped projects.
For multi-color stamping, I had three foam brushes in use to apply paint to the stamp design. I had more control with this method than trying to apply ink in specific areas of a stamp.
Soap and water clean up is all that is needed. I keep a toothbrush handy at the sink, and use it to get paint (or ink) out of the crevices of my stamps. I have posted additional images on my blog to show you examples of stamping with acrylic stamps with variances, so you can see the difference. Hop on over if you would like to learn more... 
And we're onto the Seventh Day of Christmas!!
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On the Seventh Day of Christmas My True Love Came To Me...
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Supplies: Snowy Serenade Winter Night, Double Dot Slate Dot, Double Dot Frost Dot, Winter Lace Stamp, iCandy Jewels
