Crafter's Companion Floral Tea Cups Stamps — A Review

A few weeks ago, I saw some teacup stamps on Amazon that I immediately fell in love with and ordered, and since some of you enjoy paper crafting as much as I do, I thought I'd share my experience here since I was quite happy with the results!

These "Floral Tea Cups" stamps are from Crafter's Companion and also have a matching die, which is sold separately.

Helpfully, the stamps are numbered in the order in which you're supposed to use them. First, you stamp the main background color.

Next, you use the outline stamp. (Hard to see here, but this gold color has a metallic sheen, much like a real teacup would.)

Next, you stamp the outside of the roses.

Then, the inside of the roses. (I know my pink inks don't match at all, but hey, I was dying to try these out and used what I had on hand.)

And then the finished design with the roses and leaves. I was aiming for perfection, but apparently the stamp is supposed to leave a bit of white space in the design, which makes these stamps pretty forgiving to use. And in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn't paying attention and switched steps four and five, so the leaves actually were supposed to be step four and not step five. Oh well.

I've got to find a space in my office to place a table, but until then, I work in the floor, using my trusty Cricut Cuttlebug to cut out all the teacup stacks. I love to cut things out with a die!

I made two different styles of card, and even though I wasn't thrilled with the roses' ink colors (Hobby Lobby, here I come), I was actually pretty happy with the finished cards. I had a gift card and ordered my stamp set from Amazon here, and it's also available directly from Crafter's Companion here. And as luck would have it, a kind reader just *happened* to send me some gorgeous tea-themed paper crafting supplies last week, so look for more designs in the coming days!

A bit of weekend creativi-tea

Every month or so this year, I've had the pleasure of going over to my friend Kathy's house for a morning or afternoon and playing with "all the things," as she calls them, in her craft studio. She is a Stampin' Up demonstrator and has every paper crafting gadget, machine, tool, and toy imaginable, and I've been inspired to pull out my paper crafting supplies once again. This weekend, I decided to consult my Pinterest boards and experiment with the Stampin' Up Tea Together stamp set Kathy gave me last Christmas. I'm usually quite critical of my own cards because they're not as perfect and precise as hers, but I actually liked this one, perhaps because it was so simple!

First, I stamped a bunch of teapots and teacups so that I'd have plenty in case I messed up.

On a side note, I bought this retired color of Stampin' Up ink on eBay a while back because I liked the name and shade of this particular green.

I had some embossed pink paper I used as the background, and then I just added the die-cut teapot and flowers, attached with those little raised adhesive dots that give it a dimensional look. Coloring is one of my favorite parts of card making, and I used some Chameleon Pens that I thought went well with the pink of this paper. (No idea what color the paper is, but I'm pretty sure I got it at Michaels or Joann.) And Kathy had also given me some cute pearl adhesive dots (another Stampin' Up goodie), and I thought they made the perfect finishing touch for this card.

I've been slap out of tea-themed cards, as we say down South, so my goal is to make a batch of them and have them on hand at all times. If you're interested in getting this stamp set (and the matching dies) yourself, you can visit Kathy's  Stampin' Up page here. (No affiliation, just a grateful friend.) And for my paper crafting friends who already have this set, or who just like to see some pretty eye candy, I have been adding to this Pinterest board filled with cards that other people have made with this set. Have any of you been crafting in any form lately? (Warning: I just rediscovered an old watercolor paint kit. We'll see where this leads!)