LaBlanche Stamps - UTEE Tag

While at CHA, I discovered a brand-new-to-the-U.S. stamp company, LaBlanche stamps.  At first, I looked at them and sort of started walking right on by - they LOOKED like foam stamps, and I just wasn't interested.  And then I stopped, as I saw a woman demonstrating the stamps - I saw the detail of the stamp she was demonstrating, and I immediately knew these were NOT your ordinary foam stamps!  So I took a closer look.  As it turns out, while the top part, where you hold the stamp, is actually foam, the bottom part - the stamp itself - is NOT foam, but is SILICONE!!  Who knew?!  And of course, we all know one of the unique and fun features of silicone is that it is remarkably heat resistant...which means that these stamps can be used particularly well with melted UTEE!

Now, to read my full review of these stamps, head on over to Craft Test Dummies and check it out!  But I wanted to share with you here today the tag I made while playing around with my stamp.

Products I used:

• Size #8 manila shipping tag
• Craft Mat
• Glimmer Mist - Turquoise Blue, Olive Vine, Apple, and Jingle Bells
• Heat Gun
• Distress Embossing Ink pad
• Clear UTEE
• LaBlanche Fine Flourish stamp
• Staz-on Timber Brown ink pad
• Unity Stamp Art & Soul stamp set by Marah Johnson
• Distress Inks - Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo
• Ink Blending Tool
• Adirondack Paint Dabber - Snow Cap
• ColorBox Cats Eye Queue Chalk inks - Chocolate and Blueberries
• Ideology jump ring
• Industrial Chic leaf charm
• Tissue paper
• Filigree gem (from old monthly scrap kit)
• Ribbon

To start off, I took a size 8 manila tag.  I took my four colors of Glimmer Mist, and in the order listed above, I sprayed a bit of mist, on the craft mat. I then laid the tag down on top of the mist, pressing gently all around so it would soak up the Glimmer Mist.  I picked up my tag, turned it over, and used a heat gun to dry it.  I laid it back down a second time in the mist that remained on the mat (don't worry that it's all mixed together at this point), and repeated the process.

Next, I took my Distress Embossing ink pad (I prefer this one because it's extra juicy) and pressed it down all over my tag, making sure to cover the entire tag with ink.  Then I poured UTEE over the inked tag, tapped off the excess, and melted it with my heat gun.  Now, I've read in various places that it's possible to pour on more UTEE while the first layer is still hot, and to continue building layers this way.  Those people must be extremely fast.  Because I've never gotten that method to work for me.  So, I repeated the process of inking the tag with embossing ink, pouring on the UTEE, and melting it with the heat gun.  After about three layers, I decided to add a bit of Snow Cap paint dabber around the top edge and down the sides of the tag before proceeding with more UTEE.  The UTEE stuck to the paint just as it did to the ink, and as I continued melting, the white paint moved and shifted in really cool ways so that it no longer stayed just on the edges.

Finally, after about 6 layers of UTEE, I inked my LaBlanche stamp with Timber Brown Staz-on ink, made sure my UTEE was nice and melted, and stamped it onto the top part of the tag.  I repeated for the lower part of the tag.  This was my first time stamping into UTEE and I absolutely LOVED the incredible texture that was immediately created!  But I wanted to emphasize the texture even more...so I got out my inks.

Check out the Snow Cap paint dabber paint around
the top and sides of the tag, as it drifted into the melted UTEE

On the top part of the tag, I used the dark brown chalk ink and rubbed it into the crevices created by the stamped flourish.  On the bottom, I used the turquoise chalk and then the brown.    I also intentionally bent the tag to create cracks in the UTEE all over the tag, and then used my ink blending tool with some Walnut Stain Distress Ink and rubbed it into the cracks.  I went around the edges of the entire tag with the distress ink as well.

Incredible texture created from stamping into melted UTEE; tissue paper
flower created with just tissue, Glimmer Mist, glue, and filigree center

To embellish the tag, I first stamped the word "create" onto a relatively smooth portion of the tag using Staz-on, with a stamp from the newly-released Art & Soul set from Unity Stamps.  (LOVING this set - will review it on Craft Test Dummies soon!!)  I created a layered tissue-paper flower using Glimmer Mist and a filigree gem center, and added it to the lower right corner of the tag.  I found some ribbon that was almost the right color, just a bit too bright - so I dulled it with a bit of Distress Ink, and it was perfect.  I put the ribbon through the hole on the tag, and I added a jump ring to the ribbon so that I could hang a leaf charm from the Industrial Chic collection (available only at Michael's).

And that's it.  My tag is complete.  It was a new experience for me, and I had fun playing!  I will definitely be playing with UTEE again - and I most certainly see a melting pot in my future!!

What's YOUR favorite thing to do with UTEE?  Do you enjoy stamping into UTEE?  Or is there something else you enjoy more?  I'd love to hear - or see links to your projects!  And have you tried LaBlanche stamps?  What do you think?