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This may seem like a silly ?, but what is it about stamping....
that you like? I'm just curious.
I love being creative. I love mixing and matching colors. I love giving handmade gifts and cards. I like that I can use the same supplies for scrap booking. And apparently, I love collecting stamps and supplies! (The only other things that I collect are Kaleidoscopes and cookbooks).
So what about you? What do you like about this hobby? What keeps you interested? Spill it... tell me how addicted are you?
I love that it's my calming effect for me. after a ,ong day at work . I want to come home and play. I love how there are so many colors that I can use to be creative with. trying out new color combos and trying out new supplies. Like you I like how stamping with all o f it's supplies can be used for my other addiction... SCRAPPING. That's why I bought the SU markers. I can use them for stamping, scrapping plus I can refill them. With other markers it's only one or the other plus I couldn't refill them.
It's not just totally addictive, it's an obsession! I always feel the overpowering urge to take the wild and crazy ideas I get and put them on paper -- and those ideas that come during sleep are the ones that are the most obsessive in nature. I find it thrilling to get the right color combination with the right inks and the right design. I love to watch embossing powder heat up and melt as you go across the design; and now that I have tried cracked glass, I must admit that there was something thrilling about unrolling those curled edges and watching the cracks form. I think the bottom line is, I am an artist at heart, and rubber stamping allows that artistry to shine.
Ditto on all of the above. I call it my "art therapy" - as metioned above it is calming. I used to do very detailed cross-stitch, some projects took a year. Stamping is nearly instant gratification. Creative activities are great morale boosters ("I made that"). I like the incentive to learn and try new techniques, a sense of accomplishment and mastery. I can't draw*, but I love to color - didn't most of us do that as little girls? Boys aren't into coloring books like girls, I think thats why so few men are into this hobby. It's fun to hear from the few who do! It's a fun hobby to share if you have a group of stampers to play with - Stampin Up has tied into that by selling only through workshops and home parties.
How addicted am I?
I had a customized desk/cabinet wall unit built a few years ago in a spare room just for my stamping scrapping needs - I need more storage room now. (My husband got his side of the room customized for our two computers - so he didn't complain about mine, although I use the computer as much as him.)
I'm so addicted, I.......can't wait for the big new catalog this summer.
The order from the party I hosted last weekend is coming tomorrow and I can't wait for that either!
Addiction to SCS is included of course. Oh my, I think the Oscars has already started and here I am talking about my addiction......must....pry....myself.....away.
* A little off subject, but that brought to mind the "Crayon Kids" set. I can draw those images, I think most people could, so I don't get paying $33 for it! :shock:
~ Kathy
__________________ I love talking about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about. ~ Oscar Wilde
I like that anybody, at any skill level, can be artistic--even if they cannot draw or paint. I also like that it can be as simple or as complex as the artist chooses it to be. I agree with someone else's comment above that it is very gratifying to play with stamps and colored paper--I enjoy working with my hands to make something that will make someone else smile, when they receive it.
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
I love the instant gratification as well. I can bang out a card in 10-15 minutes - voila, done! I also love to give, and stamping provides a way to reach out and bless a lot of people! I love that I can do something cutesy or elegant or masculine or feminine or quirky, all from the same supplies. And being as anal retentive as I am, I LOVE that the colors match!
__________________ My Gallery Team Jasper! "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" Mt. 6:21
SU has made me an artist. They've done all the drawing and they give me coordinating colors. Sure, they've done all the hard work, I just have to put it all together. I've always wanted to be artistic, and now I am. The comment my mother made was - I can see why you like stamping, you always used to like to color
__________________ Melanie in NC -
Stamp, scrap, read, knit - all on my blog www.mholles.blogspot.com
January pages scrapped 1/10
I totally agree with ALL of the above, and would add one more.
When I became a sahm at 33 (something I never thought I would do and don't regret for a minute!), I wasn't prepared for the repetitive "work": laundry, cleaning toilets, cooking meals and cleaning after, picking up toys, changing 18 diapers on my newborn in one day, etc. Nothing I did stayed DONE. All my previous jobs had been very project oriented: set a goal, work hard, achieve the goal, move on to the next goal. Wow, what a change! I didn't get into paper crafts until after a year or so of this new lifetime career. I was desperate to find something to do that stays done and that lets me play. So now I have sb pages, cards relatives have framed and put on their walls, handmade books, etc. to look at after the fact and feel like I've DONE something!
I feel pretty much the same. I can't draw, I don't even have neat handwriting but I love make scrapbook pages with more details and more organized than photo albums. A few Christmas' ago I was seaching a the stores in our small town for Christmas cards. I love giving cards that look elegant, not cutesy. All I could find was cards that looked like I bought them in those bulky $3 packs. Nothing wrong with those, but not what I was looking for especially when I wouldn't be spending $3 for a lot of them. I thought I could make better cards than that and did. I loved seeing the blank page transform into something very nice. I still did not know about color and design and spent hours coming up with something that looked good. Then when I discovered SU I no longer had to worry about colors.
__________________ Taryn
"Forget regret or life is yours to miss." - Jonathan Larson
Location: East of the Rockys and West of the Rest Canada!
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I have always been crafty, and stamping is the one thing I have found that lets me tie everything together. Paper tole, needlework, painting, oragami, photography and on and on and on
I am one happy lady.
Plus, it gives me an excuse to have my 'space' in my own home. My stamp studio has become the most important room in the house for me. It is amazing how my family gravitates to the room when I am in it to talk rather than me having to chase them around to have a decent conversation. I always stop what I am doing for a chat. The nice comfy armchair in the corner helps.
Stamping & scrapping are my creative outlets. Like other's have said, I can't draw at all. But I've always loved creating things. I work P/T and like LateBlossom, the repetitive nature of housework is something I don't deal well with. This is something I can do, see and keep (or give away) the results. But I don't have to do the exact same thing again (like laundry & vacuuming).
I can't draw...well I could probably do the crayon kids...but that would be about it.;) Mostly I was drawn to the variety of images and sentiments available...the more I learned the more supplies and accessories I required.
__________________ Have an awesome day!
Loretta Rathert~
I've wondered why I am so addicted. Yesterday, I also found an article in Real Simple magazine. The article is about energizing strategies. It says that "When people do something novel the brain's reward chemical, dopamine is released." Creating with our stamps gives us a natural high!!! I'm just glad I have this site to communicate and share with people with the same addiction.
I am not artistic or creative, but I can copy! And sometimes when I copy, something really neat happens and I do it wrong but it looks okay anyway!! Ever had that happen? So for me, it's all about being able to do something for someone that I put pieces of myself into. And I love that with both scrapbooking and stamping, people want to share what they know and how they do it naturally. No one seems to want to keep all their ideas to themselves and I've met so many really fantastic people. In addition, my family loves that I scrapbook. They weren't really too understanding at first until they saw the pages about them, and now, they actually come into the house asking me what I've done new that they haven't seen. I can't even put in words how great that feels.
Besides, there are sooo very many places to put retail therapy to work when one has this hobby and that makes me just about as happy as actually creating.
I love making stuff! I'm probably the most uncreative person I've ever met, so I tend to do only artsy things that I don't need to be creative for. Most of my cards are CASEd (thanks, everyone!!) with a few little changes here and there to fit my style and/or supplies. I also knit, because there's already a pattern laid out for me!! Nobody believes that I'm not creative anymore, and I love that!!
There's so much fun involved in debating what to buy and when (I actually kind of LIKE being on a budget)! And seeing your final project is (usually) such a thrill...
It gives me an excuse to disappear into the basement and just chill for a while when I need to...
I used to quilt, but since having kids, I can't keep my quilting stuff out, bc my little one will get into it. When I found stamping, I realized that it fulfilled many of the same creative things that I love about quilting - mixing colors and patterns, layout, piecing, ect. I also love being able to create artsy stuff when I don't consider myself artistic at all. I cannot draw anything, but stamping allows me to ignore that fact.
And then there is the feeling of that "thump" as the stamp hits the cardstock. Man, I LOVE that feeling!
__________________ Amy, mom of 2 not so sweet, but amazingly lively and fun little girls
I can't draw...well I could probably do the crayon kids...but that would be about it.;) Mostly I was drawn to the variety of images and sentiments available...the more I learned the more supplies and accessories I required.
Hey, I can do a mean stick-figure--I rock at Pictionary!
Beyond that, however . . . oh, man is it saaaaaaaaaaaad! chuckle!
__________________ Julie Ebersole (JulieHRR once upon a time . . . )julieebersole.com"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -Willy Wonka
I love just about all textile crafts. I can't draw worth beans, yet my mom is an amazing artist. She has oil paintings in her house she painted. I went to a DOTS party 10 years ago and thought stamping was so stupid. Then I got hooked. I agree with the posters, it is instant, crafty and so fun and easy. I still cross-stitch, but two years later my DH still doesn't have a stocking! I gave up quilting for the space issue. It is my relaxer and escape from the world. Nothing makes me happier than my kitty on my lap and stamps in my hand.
I love being creative. I love mixing and matching colors. I love giving handmade gifts and cards. I like that I can use the same supplies for scrap booking. And apparently, I love collecting stamps and supplies! (The only other things that I collect are Kaleidoscopes and cookbooks).
So what about you? What do you like about this hobby? What keeps you interested? Spill it... tell me how addicted are you?
Dina
I will second you on -
1. Creative
2. Mixing and matching colors of my own, rather than searching for background paper in the colors that I want;
3. Making/giving handmade gifts and cards
4. Using same supplies for scrapbooking
5. Collecting stuff!
PLUS:
I love that I can stamp and stamp and stamp and stamp the same image as many times as I want and not be limited versus the stickers that I am "afraid" to use or that I love and could never afford to get tons of them to use over and over in the same way. So I tell myself it is cheaper, LOL!! Well it would be if I stopped at one stamp set and kept using it over and over!!
In addition to that the ability to not only be able to use that image over and over, to be able to make it DIFFERENT in so many ways each time if I want, I can stamp in different colors, I can emboss, etc.
I also think it is therapeutic for the time spent it can be calming....and also on those days where you just want to whack something, stamp, stamp, stamp!!!!
I think I enjoy it most because there are so many things I can stamp.
Yeah, what she said too!!!
LOL my sister was talking about doing a project a few weeks ago, it was a wall that she was talking about doing some stenciling on and I was like "why waste time with THAT, why don't you just STAMP IT?!!" and she was like wow, I never thought of that and I just looked at her like she was the stupidest person in the world (what she said my expression looked like) ... I just could NOT fathom ever NOT thinking about how to do a project and NOT starting with how could I make it a stamping project??? YOu know? Why in the WORLD would you want to spend hours with a little brush and a stencil when you could just stamp stamp stamp and be done with it, LOL!
Stamping is a very therapeutic and relaxing activity for me. I loooooove paper, and I looooove all the different stamp sets I have...there's such a variety, so no matter what my mood or what occasion I'm creating a card for, I know I'll come up with something.
I also enjoy the social aspect of getting together with stamping friends and learning new techniques, getting new ideas, and just chatting with the girls.
I love that my husband just sighs and shakes his heads. We have a deal--I don't complain when he buys a new bowling ball or golf club, and he doesn't complain (well, not much!) when new stamping stuff shows up.
I love sharing what I've made with other people...this Christmas I gave two of my best friends a 'sampler pack' of cards I'd made. They were so excited about it, and that made me feel really good. They even said they were too pretty to send, which is definitely a mark of success!
This may seem like a silly ?, but what is it about stamping....
Golly whiz....
Not to mention getting all kinds of new "toys".
