animating your stamps...

Hello my fabulous friends!

Several weeks ago, I shared a tutorial on making an animated card using Uchi's Design Animation stamps and dies... (see it HERE). In that post, I said that with a little extra work, it's possible to animate other stamps you might have already in your collection... So, today I wanted to share how you can do that...

I have the Flying Owls animation stamp set, but I wanted to make it more festive and Christmasy... In going through my holiday stamps, I realized that the Santa hat from Tim Holtz's Crazy Things stamp set fit the owl!! 

Paper: Georgia Pacific

Stamps: Uchi's Design Flying Owls; Tim Holtz Crazy Things

Ink: Memento Espresso, Tuxedo Black; Bic Ultra Fine Rambunctious Red; Chameleon (YO3, NU3, NU0, RD4, YG3, NG4, BR4, BR5, D)

Dies: Uchi's Design Animation Grid; Papercraft Mulit-Bow

Other: Ranger Glossy Accents

How cute, right?

Well, I could have let the hat stay stationary while the owl dances, but that's not nearly as cool as the hat wiggling around too... So, here's how to make it dance...

Step 1: Die cut an animation grid out of thin copy paper. This will serve as our mask. If you paper is too thick, it won't work.

Step 2: Temporarily adhere your mask to your card stock... I'm just using post-it notes, but any low tack tape will work.

Step 3: Stamp your image through your mask. Because you have to get your image through a mask, this takes more pressure than normal stamping.

Note: getting it to stamp well through the mask can take some practice, and some images are better suited for this than others. I suggest doing some test runs just to get the feel of it.

Step 4: Without moving your mask, color in the image through the mask... I used an ultra fine tip marker for this... Don't let the thin strips of the mask move around while you are coloring... the crisper your lines, the better. Also, due to the animation, simple coloring is better than trying to do some complicated shading or pattern.

Step 5: Shift your mask so it COVERS what you just stamped/colored... the colored part should completely disappear. Temporarily tape it in place.

Step 6: Stamp your image again, slightly shifted from how you had it originally. Don't move it TOO much or the animation will look jumpy.. Again, practicing on a scrap paper will help you figure out how much to move it.

Step 7: Color through your mask again.

At this point, you can test your animation by sliding your grid back and forth... Without the grid, the image will look really weird, but once you put the grid over top and start sliding it, magic happens!

Step 8: OPTIONAL- For mine, I wanted the owl to be wearing the hat... The owl is already an animation stamp, and just needed to be stamped. I used a MISTI to help line up the owl lines with the lines I already created with the hat.  I also wanted the tummy to be plain, so after I inked up the stamp, I wiped the ink off the heart before stamping. 

Step 9: Use a fine tip marker to do any needed touch up... I masked off the white part of the hat so I wouldn't accidentally color too far up my lines. 

Step 10: Assemble and decorate your card how you would like... 

Enjoy!

~Kassi

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