Make Fast Hand Made Cards by Stamping Directly On Your Photos

You won't believe how FAST you can put together a stack of adorable hand made cards by stamping directly on your photos. From thank you notes to sympathy cards to holiday greetings to baby announcements, the possibilities are endless and it's super easy to do! It's so much fun and so fast and rewarding that we're creating a special section on Stamping Family just for these types of projects.

There are two basic ways to do this; stamp on actual photos your order or print out through photo printing or printing photo images onto cardstock yourself. Either work great but each yields a different look and requires slightly different techniques. Photos printed on any glossy medium require that you use permanent ink such as StazOn, craft ink or images using heat embossing with Versamark and any of our high quality embossing powders. Photos printed on cardstock are matte but you can use any of your inks to stamp over them.

Here's an example of a card I made printing out a photo of a friend's dog on plain Whisper White Cardstock. I used the “sepia” setting on my photo editing program and colored in his tongue using Blushing Bride classic ink and an Aquapainter (go easy on the water so your card won't bubble!). Also, always do a test before colorizing any areas on your photo; you want to make sure you won't have bleed or color distortion issues. If you do, experiment with other techniques like sponging, markers, etc. to get the results you want. Take a look:

Seriously, how CUTE is that? And it took me all of five minutes, max.

Think about how quickly you could turn out a huge batch of baby announcements? Or a whole bunch of graduation party thank you notes with the honoree right there in their cap and gown? Or your Holiday cards? With just a couple of stamps, a Versamark pad, some gold or silver embossing powder and some card stock, you would whip through those in an afternoon! You could even put some people BACK ON THE LIST!

Here are the products I used to make this quick card:
Product List

Whisper White 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [100730] $8.50	Crumb Cake 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [120953] $7.00	Crumb Cake Classic Stampin' Pad [126975] $6.50	Hot Diggity Dog Wood-Mount Stamp Set [134021] $30.00	Real Red 8-1/2″ X 11″ Card Stock [102482] $7.00
Real Red 1/4″ Cotton Ribbon [134563] $6.00	Aqua Painters [103954] $17.00	Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad [131172] $6.50	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332] $7.00

Try out making some hand made cards by stamping directly on your photos and see how much time it saves you AND how much your recipients love them and you will be hooked!