"Kelly Creates"; word stamps for brush lettering from American crafts

Hello my friends!
This is just a short post to let you have a look at the Kelly Creates stamps carried by Michaels. I just wanted to share these, because I love the scripty font and the price is so reasonable! They stamp sets are only $5 each. That is in Canada, so they may be even cheaper in the US. And of course cheaper still if you use a coupon! It is a large set of stamps and there are about 18 to 20 words in each one. Tp give you an idea, the package size is 6" x 10", and as you can see, there isn't a lot of wasted space.  There are some word duplicates, quite a few actually, mostly the smaller words, but at this price I can live with that!  They are not in the regular stamp section. They are in a new section for journaling and brush lettering. There are eight different versions. I got 6 of them the other two are the months of the year and days of the week. I don't think I have much of a used for that, but I may end up getting them anyways as the price is so good. If I use my coupon, I am looking at about $3 a set! These are part of a collection of brush lettering items.  I think the purpose of the stamps is to help learn brush lettering.  There are also workbooks, brush pens and workbook covers etc.  All related to brush lettering. The other items are somewhat pricey, so I was surprised that the stamps were so reasonable! I have to admit, I did get sucked into purchasing some of the other items, LOL. Luckily it was a 55% off coupon weekend. 

The brush lettering is so pretty, I wanted to give it a try. A little bit challenging for someone that is legally blind! But I haven't let that stop me from being creative yet! I would have to say that the metallic brush pens are very soft and it is hard to adjust the pressure to make thick and thin lines. So I was disappointed in them.  I had to search for them at a few different Michaels, too.  Although I have to add, I couldn't find any other metallic brush pens.  But they were not cheap, $40 regular price in Canada. I also found that the black brush pens seem to run out of ink quickly. They were $12 regular price for 3 various sized black brush pens.Just a few observations I thought I would pass it along. So in summary, I wasn't as impressed with the metallic  markers, they were okay but expensive. for the quality. Now, I need to let you know that I AM NOT an experienced brush letterist!  So that could be part of the problem!  I had the best luck with the small black  brush pen.  The set of 3  black pens were a little easier to work with than the metallic, but seemed to start to dry out quickly.   But as for the stamps, I love them! And I love a lot of the words in the sets which would be great for card-making, and art journaling and mixed media art. There is also an alphabet set that you can use to create your own words. I believe these are carried exclusively at Michaels. And Kelly, of Kelly creates has several videos on brush lettering, so if you are interested in that you should definitely check her out.  Cursive lettering is going to become a lost art.  I don't believe they are teaching it in schools any more, which I just don't understand, so this is a good way to keep it alive.

I hope you found this helpful, happy crafting everyone!

Kim  xo

"Love Tag for #onelittletag

Hello my friends!
I was gone for so long, and now here I am, back again so quickly after my last post!  Feast or famine! The theme for the One  this week was "Love"  I was really pleased with the outcome of this tag.  I would love to be able to take credit for the design, but I can't, it was totally inspired by a couple of different cards that I saw on Pinterest.  I thought the design was simple but so effective.  I really liked it and wanted to give it a try. I'm not 100% sure how those were created, but I did what I thought would recreate a similar look.  I used distress inks in worn lipstick and Barn Door as watercolours.  I "smooshed" them (very technical term!) on my craft mat and used an aqua brush to paint with them.  I didn't use watercolour paper, I used Strathmore Bristol, and it held up well.  I wet the card fist and added the colour..  Then I used a brush pen to write a long script "love".  Then I die cut a heart from a Spellbinders die in my stash to create a stencil.  I used the Barn Door ink to stencil the heart.  I flicked a little water around, as distress inks are water reactive.  Then I "Smooshed" some more ink on my craft ma, spritzed it with a little water and used my brush to splatter it on my tag (I just love splatter!)  Then I scribbled some black ink from my brush pen on the mat and did the same thing..  I mounted it to some heavy black card and called it a day.  Although I am considering mounting it to some red card as well to give it another slim border all around.  Hmmm...

This is the other tag I created this week.  I used some patterned paper from my stash that had the word "love" all over it.  I used some Spellbinders Celebrations Hearst die to cut some hearts out of some of the other patterned papers in the same pad.  I also cut the heaty out of the background and inlayed all the hearts. I used a Tim Holtz stencil with some Barn Door distress ink over the entire background.  I tried to use white ink first with the stencil, but it really didn't show up very well. Then added some white splatters with some watered down white copic ink.  I die cut the "Love" using a Recollections die out of Recollections card.  I used the same red card as a backer to my tag.

I hope you liked my tags.  I have some more ideas for the "love" theme, so I will be back soon with some more tags!
Thanks so much for stopping by
Kim  xo