All in the Family

Weldon Name plate
Originally uploaded by carleycat11

When I placed my order with M, I was super excited to receive 2 stamp sets - All in the Family and Family Accessories. I've seen tons of cute cards, gift card holders, CD holders and this Name plate all made with these stamps and in the SCS Gallery and on Heather's Blog.

Overall I'm happy with the result, except for the glaringly obvious crooked "D". I think the ribbon looks a bit candy cane-ish but over all not that bad. It was definitely a lesson in patience when it came to lining up the letters and trying to make them straight, as you can see I lost my concentration for a bit when it came to the "D". Funny how I had just said, "Wow so far so good!".

It's rather easy to make, it just takes some patience. First I lightly penciled a line across an 8.5x11 pc of white cardstock, then I started stamping my family. Once completed, I drew another pencil line above them, centered my letters first, then stamped them on. For the "L" and "D" I used a masking technique that I learned about on Heather's blog. I re-stamped my head and my husbands on a pc of scrap paper, placed it over the original heads, and then stamped the "L" and the "D". I wish I could have gotten a bit closer with the "D".

I tried a different colouring technique this time from what I used on my Birthday Cards as well. Instead of colouring directly onto the stamped image, I heavily coloured a swatch on scrap paper, used a wet brush to 'blend' and once I had the consistency/shade I wanted, I coloured on the stamped image. I still need to improve on my colour skills, but I liked this method a lot better then colouring the image directly and then wetting it with my brush.

Recipe:

Ink: Ruby Red (Letters), Basic Black (stick figures)
Stamps: All in the Family, Headline Alphabet (borrowed from M!)
Other Supplies: Making Memories Petunia Brads, Ribbon from Michaels (I need to get some coordinating ribbon from SU!), Pencil crayons.
Purpose: I'm not sure yet, I think I'll just mat and frame it and set it on one of the end tables in the living room. Eventually I'll have to do it again when we have a 2nd child.
Difficulty: Fairly easy, it just takes some patience as I mentioned to make sure everything is all lined up and centered. That's the reason I used a letter size piece of paper, I centered on that first, then cut it down to size. I definitely plan to do this again, as this was my 'sample' one. I want to make one as a gift to a friend.