Singing the praises of .........

......the Stamp-a-ma-Jig and Stampin'Write Markers!!

What is she going on about you may be saying, well without these two things I would never have been able to  make this card (or certainly not without a lot of difficulty and a fair few rejects I would guess!)

I have had the Fruit & Flowers stamp set since the launch of the Spring Mini (which I would remind you finishes at the end of this month) and in all honesty I haven't really used it. However I had a sudden flash of inspiration and thought 'fruit & flowers' are things you often give to someone who's poorly, so a get well card seemed to be in order!

This is where the jig and markers come in - I started by colouring the fruit stamps with a Real Red and Old Olive marker and stamped onto Whisper White, then punched out with a circle punch and matted onto a larger circle of Old Olive. These were placed onto a piece of Whisper White, which had been matted onto a very slightly larger piece of Real Red, so I could see where to stamp the first bit of my sentiment.  Using the markers and jig, I used words from sentiments in the Petite Pairs set but re-arranged them to say what I wanted. After glueing the fruit circles into position I stamped the '&' from For My Family and 'to make it better' which is again from Petite Pairs - the 'get well soon', I think is from a retired set and was punched with the Word Window punch. The tiny flowers are punched from Itty Bitty Punch Shapes and the centres punched with the 2mm handheld punch.

When I first became acquainted with SU I thought 'I have stamp pads, why would I need markers?' and now I know. Whilst a lot of stamps can be masked with post-it notes it would be practically impossible to use different colours on a stamp without the markers so, if you think you can do without them, take it from me - YOU CAN'T! Several markers can now be bought individually at a very reasonable £2.95 so why not treat yourself to a few basic colours and I promise you that you'll soon want more :0)

I have noticed that when crafters are asked to be guest designers they are often asked 'what couldn't you do without?' - well I hope I'm never asked that question because it would be much easier to tell them what I could do without.

Waffling and inspiration finished I will get back to what I was doing before the making of this card took over!!