Since we’ve got stamps on the brain, we thought we’d revive this blog post from last year. It’s a fun way to test your knowledge about our exclusive line of clear stamps.
Think you know everything about our exclusive My Acrylix® stamps? Put your knowledge to the test by reading the list below! 🙂
2. If you see a stamp image outlined in red, that means it coordinates with one of the shapes from our Cricut® collections. If it’s outlined in blue, that means it coordinates with one of our Thin Cuts dies.
3. We put A LOT of thought and effort into making the best stamps for our customers. See the entire process in this infographic:
4. After we design each paper packet, we create two coordinating stamp sets, one for scrapbooking and one for cardmaking, to be paired with that specific paper. These two stamp sets can be found in the idea book right behind the coordinating Workshops Your Way™ scrapbooking kits.
5. Our stamps are made right here at the Home Office, in a top-secret room.
6. It takes about one hour to make one sheet of stamps from start to finish.
7. New stamps work best when you “season” them. To do so, rub the stamp across a stamp pad, and then stamp onto scrap paper until the image is even.
8. Our stamps can be used with all sorts of inks, including dye, pigment, solvent, and alcohol inks.
9. Rather than attaching your stamps to your blocks, try using your blocks to pick up your stamps from a flat surface. This way, the stamp will hold its natural shape.
10. Our My Acrylix® blocks have a small white horizontal line on them to help you with stamp placement, which is especially helpful for keeping words and borders straight.
11. Some people cut apart their stamps in order to rearrange words in a sentiment when sticking them to their blocks.
12. Our stamps are flexible! Manipulate them so they fit inside shapes and banners, or just to get a different look!
13. If some of your ink doesn’t transfer when stamping, quickly breathe over the stamp to re-moisten the remaining ink and then stamp over the image again. The missing portion usually blends into the existing image if the ink isn’t too dry. This is called the Huffing or Stamp Over Technique.
14. Because our stamps and blocks are clear, you can easily stamp over the image again to get a richer, deeper image.
15. If you’re looking to remove that stubborn pigment ink, try our Spritz Cleaner and Stamp Scrubber. It makes it easy!
16. Our stamps don’t need to tan—they like being transparent, so keep them out of the sun!
17. Our stamps come in handy envelopes, which fit into our My Acrylix® organizer. You can also use our large organizer and tabs to store even more stamps. We also have a mini organizer for those mini stamp envelopes.
18. If your stamps ever start to lose their stickiness, all you need to do is rinse them with warm water and soap, and the stickiness will come right back. You can also use StazOn™ cleaner on the smooth side of the stamp.
19. Some stamps make great friends, like our good ol’ friend, Sticky Boy!
What things did you not know? Tell us in the comments! 🙂
2. If you see a stamp image outlined in red, that means it coordinates with one of the shapes from our Cricut® collections. If it’s outlined in blue, that means it coordinates with one of our Thin Cuts dies.
3. We put A LOT of thought and effort into making the best stamps for our customers. See the entire process in this infographic:
4. After we design each paper packet, we create two coordinating stamp sets, one for scrapbooking and one for cardmaking, to be paired with that specific paper. These two stamp sets can be found in the idea book right behind the coordinating Workshops Your Way™ scrapbooking kits.
5. Our stamps are made right here at the Home Office, in a top-secret room.
6. It takes about one hour to make one sheet of stamps from start to finish.
7. New stamps work best when you “season” them. To do so, rub the stamp across a stamp pad, and then stamp onto scrap paper until the image is even.
8. Our stamps can be used with all sorts of inks, including dye, pigment, solvent, and alcohol inks.
9. Rather than attaching your stamps to your blocks, try using your blocks to pick up your stamps from a flat surface. This way, the stamp will hold its natural shape.
10. Our My Acrylix® blocks have a small white horizontal line on them to help you with stamp placement, which is especially helpful for keeping words and borders straight.
11. Some people cut apart their stamps in order to rearrange words in a sentiment when sticking them to their blocks.
12. Our stamps are flexible! Manipulate them so they fit inside shapes and banners, or just to get a different look!
13. If some of your ink doesn’t transfer when stamping, quickly breathe over the stamp to re-moisten the remaining ink and then stamp over the image again. The missing portion usually blends into the existing image if the ink isn’t too dry. This is called the Huffing or Stamp Over Technique.
14. Because our stamps and blocks are clear, you can easily stamp over the image again to get a richer, deeper image.
15. If you’re looking to remove that stubborn pigment ink, try our Spritz Cleaner and Stamp Scrubber. It makes it easy!
16. Our stamps don’t need to tan—they like being transparent, so keep them out of the sun!
17. Our stamps come in handy envelopes, which fit into our My Acrylix® organizer. You can also use our large organizer and tabs to store even more stamps. We also have a mini organizer for those mini stamp envelopes.
18. If your stamps ever start to lose their stickiness, all you need to do is rinse them with warm water and soap, and the stickiness will come right back. You can also use StazOn™ cleaner on the smooth side of the stamp.
19. Some stamps make great friends, like our good ol’ friend, Sticky Boy!
What things did you not know? Tell us in the comments! 🙂
A few weeks ago, we called for artwork made with your favorite stamp sets, and you answered the call! We were surprised to see that so many of you selected the exact same stamp set as your favorite: My Acrylix® Sing Glory—a Hostess Rewards set! In celebration of this timely trend, today we’re featuring three different cards made with this same set, but done by three different artists. A huge thanks to our readers for sharing their talents with us!
C1587 My Acrylix® Sing Glory, X7162B Pear & Partridge Paper Packet, X7187B Yuletide Carol Paper Packet, 1386 Black Cardstock, 1388 Colonial White Cardstock, Z2105 Black Exclusive Inks™ Pad, Z2118 Desert Sand Exclusive Inks™ Pad, Z2012 Sequins Gold Assortment
Our first card was made by Amie Kiger. The Sing Glory stamp set is Amie’s favorite Christmas stamp from Annual Inspirations, so she made sure to grab it first while planning her Christmas workshops.
Amie found her inspiration on page seven of Annual Inspirations, then gave the card her own personal touch. First she pulled out a retired B&T paper from the Pear & Partridge kit and combined it with the sheet music B&T from the current Yuletide Carol kit. The musical notes of the paper fit the trumpeting angel and sentiment perfectly, don’t you think? We love the subtle imagery!
Amie used Desert Sand ink to stamp the angel image and black ink to stamp the “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” sentiment, with a slight overlap of corners. Her choice of embellishment, the sequins gold assortment, gives the card some sparkle and follows the card’s glittering theme.
C1587 My Acrylix® Sing Glory, X7187B Yuletide Carol Paper Packet, 1273 Desert Sand Cardstock, 1388 Colonial White Cardstock, 1245 Olive Cardstock, 1282 New England Ivy Cardstock, 1272 Cranberry Cardstock, X5927 Ruby Cardstock, Z1830 Brown & Tan Glitter Paper, Z2105 Black Exclusive Inks™ Pad, Z2012 Sequins Gold Assortment, Z2023 Bling Gems Gold Assortment, Z1686 Cricut® Art Philosophy Collection, Z1921 Baker’s Twine Neutral Metallic Assortment
Our second card was handcrafted by Nicole Robinson. Nicole started with the Yuletide Carol paper packet, which you can see for yourself on page 61 of Annual Inspirations. Her layering of cardstock and B&T brings the eye to a focal point: the embossed angel stamped image on its own piece of Colonial White cardstock! Nicole chose to stamp the “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” sentiment in black ink on a Cricut®-cut shape, ink the edges, and attach it at an angle.
The red floral accents Nicole crafted are a fun spin on the holly leaf sentiments of the stamp set, though they are not actual stamps from the set. What a clever idea!
Our third card was submitted by Kara Davies. Her take on the stamp set is crisp and clean, and it uses just the “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” sentiment as a focal point, without an additional stamp in the background. Kara stamped her sentiment in Outdoor Denim ink, which coordinates with the quatrefoil embossed Outdoor Denim cardstock in the background. A single piece of gold Shimmer Trim across the middle adds a pop of sparkle and dimension.
Three spins on one very glorious stamp set. We love the versatility of our My Acrylix® stamps, and we hope you do too!
Sticky Boy has made a big splash on his Facebook page debut, and so many people have been asking about his whereabouts and how they can get their OWN. But what do we really know about the mysterious fellow? To satisfy the public outcry, we managed to secure an exclusive interview with the enigmatic figure. We sat him down together with Close To My Heart Founder and CEO Jeanette Lynton to find out more about who he is, where he came from, and what he’ll be doing next.
Interviewer: We’re so delighted to have you both here with us for this interview. Sticky Boy, I think there are a lot of people that would like to get to know you better. Would you take a minute to introduce yourself?
Sticky Boy: Oh sure. But before I do that, there’s one thing I’d like to clear up first—even though I am celebrating my tenth birthday as a clear polymer stamp this month, I’ve actually been around quite a bit longer than that. You could say I’d already been “around the block” a few times before I really became the stamp I am today. You know what I mean?
Jeanette: What he means is that long before he became a polymer stamp, Sticky Boy started as a hand-drawn figure on a sketch pad. I doodled out this little figure in order to illustrate an idea I had to my husband, David, who also works for the company and has been in charge of stamp production all these years. We all liked it so much that we decided to turn him into a stamp.
Interviewer: And that is how Sticky Boy was born?
Jeanette: Well, not really. See, back then he was made into a wood and rubber stamp.
Sticky Boy: True, true. That earliest version was not exactly what you would call a “sticky” boy. If he had had a name it would probably be “stampy boy” or something much less catchy.
Jeanette: The name of the stamp was actually What’s Up, and I believe he was every bit as popular as you are now, Sticky Boy.
Sticky Boy: I don’t know about that. Did “What’s Up” have his own Facebook page?
Jeanette: No, but plenty of people were stamping him onto pages of their own making. It was fun to stamp a whole scene for him. People got really creative with him and some of his friends, like another popular stamp character, Frank.
The “What’s Up” stamp from the 2001–2002 Close To My Heart Catalog & Idea Book.
Sticky Boy: Please, let’s not change the subject. This is supposed to be about me.
Interviewer: True, true. So how did the name Sticky Boy come about?
Jeanette: Well, it was a little over ten years ago and we had made the decision to transition from wood and rubber stamps to the beautiful clear polymer stamps. We were trying to come up with a name for the new line of stamps. We were revolutionizing the industry as the first to bring this new stamp process to the direct sales market and they needed a catchy name. In a meeting, David, threw out the name “Sticky Boys.” We obviously didn’t agree on the name for our brand, but he didn’t want to let it go!
Sticky Boy: I think it’s a perfectly good name!
Jeanette: Of course you do, but we went with My Acrylix® instead. As part of that whole process, we were choosing which sets would make the transition and which ones would be retired. What’s Up was on the list of sets to retire because he didn’t really fit anywhere in the new collection.
Sticky Boy: What you mean is that you were worried I was going to show up all the other stamp designs and make them jealous.
Jeanette: Sure, we’ll say that. It was David who decided to use the What’s Up design as a prototype of the new My Acrylix® stamps. And that is really how Sticky Boy was born. David was able to keep his beloved stamp image AND his brilliant name for the new stamps.
Interview: That sounds like a great partnership.
Sticky Boy: Well, there are a few details she left out. See, I didn’t love being stuck to a wooden block all the time—it made it really inconvenient to go places, and one of the things I love most is traveling. I asked Jeanette for advice about what to do, and she came up with the idea for the polymer stamps. So you could almost say that I’m the one that gave her the idea. But now I can go pretty much anywhere!
Interviewer: While we’re on the subject, there has been some discussion about how difficult you can be to find. Can you tell us how this little game of yours got started?
Sticky Boy: Happy to. One of the great benefits of being a clear polymer stamp is that you can look right through me when you’re stamping an image. That is a really great feature, but it does make me a little harder to see. Back when I first made the switch, David got the idea that it would be fun to bring me to Convention to introduce the new stamps to our Consultants. So we put our heads together and came up with the idea of a hide-and-seek type game. It let me travel and it let our Consultants see the quality of the clear stamps, too, so it was really a win-win. And it was so much fun that we had to try it again the next year, and the next…
Interviewer: … and that’s how a tradition gets born. Jeanette, what did you think about this idea?
Jeanette: Well, I know how important it is to let David have his fun. I indulge the boys in their little game, though if I had my way, I’d let everyone take a Sticky Boy home with them!
Sticky Boy: Aww, but that takes all the fun out of it!
Celebration of Sticky Boy’s tenth birthday, complete with all of his favorite sticky treats.
Interviewer: Well, we are running short on time. Sticky Boy, what plans do you have for the future?
Sticky Boy: Well, I’m having a blast with my new Facebook page, and I have got some really fun ideas for what to do there, but other than that, the biggest thing I have planned is next year’s Close To My Heart Convention, of course.
Interviewer: That’s going to be at the Disneyland Hotel® in Anaheim, California, next July, right? How will you be dressing up this time?
Sticky Boy: I think I’m going to keep that a surprise for now. But yes, I am really looking forward to going back to the Disneyland® Hotel—there are so many fun hiding places there.
Interviewer: When will people be able to register for the event?
Sticky Boy: Our Consultants can register for Convention starting in January—so it’s coming right up! I hope everyone can come!
Interviewer: Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?
Sticky Boy: Oh yeah, just one last thing. I want to make sure everyone knows about the Deal of the Decade special that is going on. You can get C- & D-size stamp sets for just $10 each with a qualifying purchase. It’s a great deal going on for my tenth anniversary celebration, so I hope everyone takes the chance to get some great new stamps. I can vouch for them—they are every bit as fun to craft with as I am, even if they don’t enjoy the same level of celebrity.
Jeanette: Yeah, and they don’t have quite as much of an ego, either.
Interviewer: Well, thank you both very much for your time. It has been a pleasure! I look forward to seeing more of you both in the coming year.
Jeanette & Sticky Boy: Likewise.
There you have it! You heard it from Sticky Boy—December is a great time to get a deal on stamps, so get yours before it’s too late! Oh, and be sure to check out Sticky Boy’s Facebook page for more fun to come!
Sticky Boy visits Jeanette at Convention ten years ago.
11. Some people cut apart their stamps in order to rearrange words in a sentiment when sticking them to their blocks.
13. If some of your ink doesn’t transfer when stamping, quickly breathe over the stamp to re-moisten the remaining ink and then stamp over the image again. The missing portion usually blends into the existing image if the ink isn’t too dry. This is called the Huffing or Stamp Over Technique.
18. If your stamps ever start to lose their stickiness, all you need to do is rinse them with warm water and soap, and the stickiness will come right back. You can also use StazOn™ cleaner on the smooth side of the stamp.
