Oh gosh, I hope not.  Remember that stamping craze several years back? Well, I was one of those crazies.  Made cards for everything! Valentine’s, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving…see – crazy.  But the craziest of all was Christmas. I’m not sure what I was thinking.  My kitchen would turn into, what Goldfarb called, a tiny, one-person sweatshop.  And although I’d get into a roll and have a pretty efficient assembly line going, it was a long, long, messy process.  Glue, double-side tape, and hundreds of tiny paper remnants that had been cut, torn or hole punched strewn all over the floor.  Embossing powder in every nook and cranny. This all came to an end when our holiday card list hit 150.  That was way too much work, especially since I am so old fashioned and sentimental that I write in every single card, and I mean I write in every single card – I don’t just sign our names. All my stamping supplies, all 18 craft boxes, now safely reside in an offsite storage unit.  I half toyed with the idea of packaging stuff into sets and selling them on ebay or friends’ garage sales, but even that seemed like too much work.  So when a little craft project for Easter came up this week, I went to Impress in U Village to pick up a handful of things.  It seemed much quicker than rummaging through storage for some stamps. Plus, I needed ink. 

Am so excited about the few things I got that I had to share.   For the actually stamping, I used a Fresh Ink pad in chocolate.  It was so great.  Dried super fast and when I later colored in the edges of the images with these great Copic markers, the ink didn’t run or smear.  The pads {with 36 colors to chose from} are $5.95, non-toxic, acid-free and embossable.   The markers are fab, too!  Copic has been around for a long, long time.  Many years ago I used to use their fine tip black pens…until Sharpie came out with their extra fines.  The Copic Ciao series features a dual end – brush tip on one end and a medium broad on the other. The later is a chisel tip so it can make similar stroke effects of a calligraphy pen for large font.  And did I mention the tips are replaceable?  You can own these markers for life.  The ink is permanent, non-toxic and acid-free.  It is also refillable!  It doesn’t bleed and is the perfect opaqueness.  There are 180 beautiful colors that are available for purchase singly {at $3 ea} or in a variety sets.  I loved both of these finds.  The stamp pad can be purchased through Impress and as well as the markers, which you can also get at most local art stores. I almost got excited to start stamping again. Well, maybe just little, quick projects.  Oh wait, I did have my eye on this great little portable letterpress machine…oy!  I’m in trouble.