Having fun with the Enchanted Corner set

The Details

Where did it come from

Papercraft Essentials Issue 150

When did I get it

19th August 2017

When did I try it

22nd August 2017

First quick impression

This is a really nice set of stamps. I have other toadstool houses but this one stands out and is different. I love the signpost which can either hold the Santa’s Workshop or the North Pole stamp. I’ll be honest I prefer the larger stamps to the tiny ones but that is just me because I struggle with tiny elements. I’m looking forward to trying them out.

Testing the Stamps

To test out new stamps I always use my Tim Holtz Stamping Platform. I know there are other platforms available but when I came to the point that I knew I needed one I did a load of research into the different features of them all and decided this was the right one for me. You can read my post about it.  Why did I need one? With the Fibromyalgia (not to mention a bonus gift of some Arthritis in my hands) I could no longer rely on my hands to get a clean even print with stamps. I was increasingly finding I was not getting good results, even with the Rocker Blockers which always guaranteed this before. The benefit of a stamping platform is that for whatever reason you do not get a clean impression you can simply re-ink and go again and you are guaranteed to be exactly in the same spot. Even the best eyes can be slightly off and then you risk shadowing.

I also always use Archival Ink to test stamps that come as free gifts with magazines. They are usually made from a different material to the one used by a lot of the major brands which means that if you use a dye based ink like Memento the ink can pool on the stamp and give a really bad impression.  You can see exactly what I mean in this test of a fairy stamp. Archival Ink does not pool like this and I get to really test the stamp properly.

Stamping Verdict

As you can see I had a bit of a crisis when stamping and dropped the Ink Pad, stupid Fibro clumsiness, I think I was in need of food at the time and had the jitters which didn’t help anything! With the exception of this though the images are perfect. These are some of the best stamps I have received free with a magazine. The only slight downside was the fact that I had to really struggle to peel them off the backing acetate and when I had removed them they were a bit less tacky so some of the smaller ones do not want to stick back on easily. This was improved through my wetting the back lightly. But nevertheless, great stamps.

Trying out the Dies

The stamping set comes with three dies. As previously mentioned I usually prefer to use my ScanNCut for this but I gave them a go with the stamped images using my Gemini and here are the cut images.

The dies behaved perfectly well, they cut the images with a little white space around the edges, a technique I sometimes like to do depending upon the project. So the next thing to do is to come up with a project for these stamps. I am thinking that a little hybrid crafting is what is in order today. A digitally designed background with a stamped foreground so it is time to get cracking.

The First Card

Yes, I had so much fun that I have made two cards but they are both on a similar theme. The backgrounds came from My Craft Studio “Craft e Christmas” collection, the first one was Background 18 from Crystal Sparkle and the second was Number 27 from Festive Deco Follies. These backgrounds were cut to size on my Cutterpillar Pro with a silver piece of Create and Craft Mirror Card backing them. The sentiments were stamped directly onto the backgrounds using my stamping platform and some Ranger Archival Ink. I then stamped all my main images and coloured them in with a mixture of Spectrum Noir and Spectrum Illustrator pens (the gift on the second card was actually coloured with Spectrum Sparkle to give it a touch of shimmer. These stamped images were all cut on the ScanNCut leaving a 1mm border around the edge. Finally, I layered them up with sticky foam pads, the hands with parcels were attached with 2mm depth pads and the rest of the images with 1mm depth pads. Here are the completed cards:

The Verdict

It is safe to say that I absolutely love these stamps. They are some of the nicest stamps to come with a magazine for some time in my opinion. The quality of the stamping is fantastic and the designs are lovely. It is safe to say that they have most certainly earned their place in my craft stash. If you are new to my posts I am working my way through all the gifts I have received with magazines and only keeping the ones I really love. Sometimes you can actually have too much craft stash, believe it or not! You can read the post about it here.

Until next time,
Gentle Hugs,
Susan