Think Outside the Stamp

While I enjoy my cricut and all I can do with it, I have lots of great decorative stamps that I like to utilize. But there are some simple designs I picked up at the dollar store a couple of years ago that are generic but can be easily embellished and would allow children to add their own artistic flair and imagination to their creations. Here are a few basic shapes...




Using a fine point Sharpie, it's easy to add some details
and take a generic stamp and give it some life...this one could easily be a cute bow, too!

This basic flower is shown using a thin sharpie...

and a thicker one...it's pretty forgiving. I try not to be
too picky about how I draw the details.



In these examples I used the heart shape to create a larger butterfly. The extra wings were stamped and cut out. The space inbetween them I added a little black so it would match the body of the butterfly and glued it on after slightly rolling the wings around my skinny sharpie.


I also breathe on the stamp and can get a couple of lighter images out of it, too which are just as pretty. I used the lighter color for the top wings.

Even more detailed stamps can be tweaked
by adding an extra touch...