The Inky Flamingo | Stamp with Jen Vitek

Hi friends! I wanted to experiment with an older technique today, called swipe stamping, and let you know how to do it, and what I ultimately thought about this technique.

Swipe stamping is very simple– all you need is a stamp and an ink pad! Put your stamp on the ink pad, and instead of inking it like normal, swipe it across the ink pad and then stamp. You’ll find it gives you a lighter, more brushed effect. The top picture is a stamp that has been inked regularly; the bottom image was created using swipe stamping.

I experimented with different stamps, and for me, the bottom line is that I did not care for the results. I tried using a square stamp for a background paper, and to me it didn’t seem like anything I would use in my cards. I’m not going to post a picture because I don’t want to discourage you from trying this technique. It’s all going to depend on your stamps, and how new your ink pad is. My older ink pads seemed to work better than my new ones.

I think this technique has potential if you have the right stamp. For example, I’ve seen this technique done using balloon stamps, and it was very striking. If you have the beautiful balloons set from the current catalog, I think this technique would work very well. If you try it, please share your results!

Happy Stamping!

Jen