We often feel that it takes years of experience with stamping and knowing all of the latest techniques to make a great card. I have seen beginning stampers produce beautiful cards and experienced stampers produce a card that they worked hours on and it looked like it came from the dollar store. You can spend hours working on a card and when finished, it looked cheap.
How is that? The artist used cheap cardstock. Many people do not realize how important it is to use quality cardstock for your art work. First, cheap cardstock is often thin and flimsy. It has poor weight quality, thickness, and stiffness which is often referred to as snap. No matter the effort and talent put into the card, it really does not show quality. Also, the color needs to be consistent and even. Many cardstocks are only dyed on the outside and if you tear it, the inside is much lighter.
This is one of the reasons I always choose the cardstock that Stampin’Up sells. They do have five different paper mills throughout the world that makes theirs. Before they will accept the product, it must be of a consistent weight, thickness and stiffness. The color must even throughout.
Stampin’Up makes it easy to create since their top-quality cardstock also matches the ink pads, markers, and accessories. It takes the guess work out of deciding which ink or paper to use once you have decided on your color scheme.
I have received hand-made cards that people have spent hours working on and their work was excellent, but the card was flimsy, or the paper was rough and a little fuzzy in places they had gone over several times to add color depth in areas. It is sad knowing how much time they worked on the card, yet it was not up to quality. If you are going to spend your time to make a special card, use quality paper. If not, just make one on the computer and save yourself an hour of work.
When I hear people talking about the great deal they found on cardstock and designer series paper at one of the big chain stores, I cringe. Some may be fairly good, but I challenge you, take a small piece of Stampin'Up cardstock and compare it with what you are about to purchase. If it does not meet the quality, please pass that great sale up!
Check the Stamp'Up catalog to see all the 54 beautiful colors of cardstock, markers, ink pads, and accessories that match to make your stamping experiences more exciting. Click on catalogs for a view of all of them.
