WARNING - CORNY POST!!

tee hee...

I LOVE these Veggie Couture stamps from Lockhart Stamp Company - I bought them from Ellen Hutson. They're so cute! I need to get the rest of them - I just got a few of them. Ellen Hutson is WONDERFUL. Besides great stuff to buy, they always throw in a sweet little thank you with your order. And they ship FAST! Which, as Yvonne knows, is essential when you just HAVE to have that 8 millionth stamp to make a card you just HAVE to copy right this very instant!!! The greeting is from one of my fabby new Inque Boutique stamp sets called Mini Fantasy words. Corn Dress is colored with Copics, but of course!

I also got the Nestabilities dies and have been reading in the wonderful SCS thread about challenges and joys "nestled" therein.. I did them in a different order this time and it was easier, I swear. I took Jerri K's advice and did: A, C, Nestability smooth side down, cardstock, B. It worked like a charm. I liked it so much I put two nested dies in there to see what happened and that's how I got the sassy saffron ring. I did it in a different order yesterday and it also worked fine.

I promise I will only bring you my honest opinion of stamping products on this blog, so here goes an opinion for ya.

I gotta tell you, the lack of instructions in such an extremely expensive product is a more than a tad offputting. Especially back to back with my great experience with the Inque Boutique video on their homepage. So you plunk down 25 bucks for some nested dies and the packaging offers the following:

1. Zero permanent storage (I prefer products that come to you in the package you can store them in - these are stuck on a piece of cardboard with double sided tape and encased in a cheap plastic case meant to hang on a retail display). This isn't a total deal killer for me - lots of companies are bad at this, but why give me something to throw away for you? Can't you throw it away yourself? CD's are a great example of a product that is packaged in its own storage. Can the rest of the world please get with the program?

2. Zero instructions - the cardboard they are stuck to has lots of marketing statements like "Universal! Works in most Leading Die Cut Systems" and "Use to cut Paper, Cardstock" and "Serious Value for Beautiful nested shapes". Well really? How the h--- do I do that, exactly? Oh, I know, I go to a place that has great instruction - Splitcoast Stampers!!! The insert does have the website address on the bottom, but doesn't say anything like "Go to our website for instructions & projects" - it just lists it. I was SHOCKED when I opened the package expecting to find detailed instruction sandwiched in there. Then, sadly, at the bottom of the useless cardboard, "Made in China." :( I'm not a fan of that at all, I'm not gonna lie.

HOWEVER, all that being said, the product itself, thanks to the help from my SCS sisters, appears to work just fine and I think it is something I will use. If you are thinking about getting these though, you really need to do some research. On the SCS thread, I read things about people's Cuttlebug spacers breaking when embossing with them, so I think if you do it wrong, you might have problems. I have not had any of those, but I also haven't figured out how to emboss yet. One link said you need a special mat to emboss with, but I haven't read any farther than that, so I have absolutely no pretense that I am an expert or anything of that sort!!

So tonight I'm adding Inque Boutique to the blue list. Tomorrow I will be checking out their innovative storage solution and I'll let you know what I think. Good stamp storage is the white whale of my creative life, and I won't rest until something clicks!

I hope you all had a great weekend. My sister and I had an editing breakthrough today and did a fantastic voiceover of one of my shows. We are committed to making the May 9th deadline for submitting a summer show. So stay tuned for that, and hold me to it! :)