Impression Obsession stamp handle- oh how I love thee....

Those of you who have met me have probably heard me RAVING about Impression Obsessions magnificent stamp block. I have had the privilege of meeting the owner of IO Mitra this past summer and I saw her demo'ing stamping backgrounds with background stamps. I have to say at first I wasn't very interested when I saw what she was doing because I HATED stamping backgrounds as I always miss parts of the image no matter how hard I try. So I am standing there not paying too much attention until out of the corner of my eye I see her roll the background stamp once onto her paper...and it came out perfect!!! So of course I elbowed my way to the front of the group to see more of what she just did. I asked very nicely (aka demanded) if she could do that again. She inked a large 5.75x5.75 stamp....positioned it on her paper...rolled it once...and again it was perfect.

HOLY COW.........

 I asked how it worked for finely detailed stamps and she very nicely showed me. She placed a much smaller detailed stamp on her large block, inked, rolled and out came a perfect image.

THUD....sorry that was me fainting.

I found my new love. I could not stop telling Mitra how much I loved loved loved this handle and must have one asap! She hooked me up quickly...perhaps to get the crazy woman professing her undying love away from her hee hee... and off I went. I ran home with my new handle and forced Sheila at SGD to carry these in her store now..now...NOW!!!!!!

I have become a very brave stamper let me tell you! I used to very hesitantly get my stamp ready for inking, tried lots of different layers, foams, soft surfaces, hard surfaces, etc etc etc and would stamp my image and no matter what it always took me a few tries to get a clean image. I tried everything everyone told me with no luck. I don't know if it's because of not being strong enough but I had terrible luck. Mind you, my stamper friends pretty much all shared this feeling and our garbage was filled with wasted (pricey) paper with half stamped images on it. Now with my IO handle I stamp once with ease and brag about it to everyone I know. Constantly. And again if you have met me you can vouch for that hee hee! Not only does it stamp super well for me but I can also fit more than one stamp on the handle and often stamp multiple images at a time. You read that right! And of course I do it with more bragging and a cocky look on my face lol! Rarely does it not stamp cleanly and if it doesn't I know before I even look at it because I knew my roll across my paper didn't have pressure on all sides of the block.

Ahhh Mitra....sooo happy I met you. And I have to say I have been buying up the Impression Obsession stamps like crazy! Must haves are the beautiful amazing swirls (I took this to a crop and it was one of the most used and borrowed items) and also any of the cover a card stamps- my fave being the branches. Now all us SGD diva's have one and truth be told it's usually on back order and doesn't get a chance to hit the floor because of the waiting list to get one. Which you should probably put your name on ;)

For a picture tutorial on how to use the Rocker Block (actually called the Mega mount but I have always called it rocker block because it rocks my world lol) click below to go to the IO blog and see one of their DT's picture tutorial!

Tutorial

Below I have included a card I made using the deelish swirl stamp..sigh..bliss. Okay enough chatter from me today. Here is one of my fave crafty sayings that applies here....If you are having trouble sleeping at night...it's because you don't own this must have tool. Just sayin! Cheers- Andrea

**Please note I am not being paid or anything by IO or SGD to rate this product. I just love it that much**

Oh Alice and Kraftin' Kimmie stamps play together for today's challenge

**Don't forget to enter my Kraftin' Kimmie stamps blog candy by clicking here**

"They don't keep this room so tidy as the other,' Alice thought to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little `Oh!' of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking about, two and two!

`Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,' Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of frightening them), `and there are the White King and the White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel -- and here are two castles walking arm in arm..."

--Ch. 1: Through the Looking Glass

I have combined 2 challenges today for my cards as they fit perfectly together! The challenge over at 'Oh Alice' is to use some aspect of the game of chess. You might want to use a checkerboard pattern, feature a King, Queen, Knight or Castle (Rook). Or perhaps there is another aspect of the game we haven't thought of yet. On my card I used 'Sir Galahad' the Knight from Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps to add my 'chess' component to my card. See that amazing swirl on my card. That is a new stamp I picked up at SGD that I am in love with by Impression Obsession. I then used the sketch that is the challenge for KKS this week by the amazing Michele to put my card together. A fabulous sketch I will absolutely use again and again! Junior Krafty girl Katie also wanted to play along with the challenge and used the new stamp Virginia to play along. I just love how her colouring with copics has evolved and she explained to me tonight how she adds random darker colours in the hair to colour like Krista hee hee!

Do you want to play along with us? Click here to go to the Kraftin' Kimmie stamps challenge blog to see the sketch to play along to win AND you can win even further by clicking here to go to the 'Oh Alice' challenge blog and read the deets on how to play to win there as well. Love it! Lots of ways to get the mojo rocking and perhaps win some free goodies. Good luck! Andi