Getting Inky Guest Post: Miriam Prantner on Generational Stamping

About two months ago, right about the time Little Yellow Bicycle came out with their new stamps, I started wondering about alternative ways to use my stamps. When I say alternative, I mean something beyond putting ink to stamp and stamp to paper. Since I know nothing about stamping, other than the basics, I decided to go to the experts. I contacted a number of stampers whose work I enjoy, and asked them to create a guest post for my blog.

Miriam Pranter is joining me today with a look at generational stamping. If you already know what it is, feel free to scroll down to see Miriam's beautiful examples. Otherwise, hang on because Miriam is going to tell us all about it...


Hi! I'm so excited to be here today to share one of my favorite stamping techniques with you: generational stamping. This is one of the first techniques I learned when I started stamping, and it's an especially great technique for beginning stampers because it allows you to really stretch your supplies (you can double, and even triple the number of inks you have!) not to mention the fact that it is really easy to do.

In a nutshell, when you ink up your stamp and stamp it once, that's first generation. Stamp again without reinking and that is second generation. Depending on the intensity of the original color, you can stamp it a third time for a third generation image. This image shows you the three generations of color that are created with my Outdoor Denim inkpad.

There are all sorts of ways to utilize generational stamping in your projects. I'm sharing just a couple with you today.

In this first card, I utilized generational stamping to build the main focal image in my card.  I stamped from the outside in, starting with the largest images and the lightest color.  The added benefit is that because the darker color is on top of the the lighter layers, it actually makes the darker colors a little more saturated.

For this card I used Avery Elle's Rounded Diamonds set (which my amazing friend JJ helped to design) and another of my newest acquisitions, the Quite Like You sentiment set from WPlus9.

You can also use generational stamping to create a background, as well as to add emphasis with sentiments. On this next card I used Little Yellow Bicycle's Everyday Words set.  I stamped 'delight' in second generation using Slate ink four times. Then I switched to Ruby ink and stamped the sentiment again over the third word. The great thing about this is that you don't have to be totally precise.  If your stamping isn't exactly on top of the original sentiment, it adds a little bit of shadow to your sentiment. The second part of the sentiment is stamped in Slate in first generation.

Thanks so much to Lisa for inviting me to share with you today! Hope that these cards give you an idea on how you can stretch your ink colors as well as your stamps. and that you are inspired to give it a try!

Supplies Used:

Card 1
Paper/Cardstock: CTMH - Outdoor Denim and White Daisy cardstock
Stamps: Avery Elle - Rounded Diamonds; WPlus9 - Quite Like You
Ink: CTMH - Outdoor Denim
Other: Tombow - Mono Adhesive; CTMH - Sponge Dauber; Corner Rounder

Card 2
Paper/Cardstock: CTMH  - Ruby and White Daisy cardstock
Stamps: Little Yellow Bicycle - Everyday Words set
Ink: CTMH - Ruby and Slate
Other: Tombow - Mono Adhesive; CTMH - Sponge Dauber

Be sure to check out Miriam's blog, Sooner Rather Than Later, to see more of her wonderful work!

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