Hello, Crafters.I hope you're enjoying a relaxing weekend.
Earlier this morning I uploaded my video showing how I made the baby card I shared here last Monday.
I used it as the first project for yesterday's class, and one attendee suggested that I could cut the stamp in half.
This would mean that there'd be no messing about with masking the side of the stamp I needed.
Now that I have run my classes, and uploaded a video, demonstrating how to stamp just a part of a stamp, I will probably do this.
If
you decide to go down this road there are a couple of points to
remember. First of all, by cutting your stamp in half, you will make your guarantee with Stampin' Up! null and void, as you have effectively "damaged" the stamp deliberately!
Personally I don't see this as an issue.
The quality of SU products is such that as long as you have
stamped the stamp once to make sure you get a perfect image, I think
it's unlikely that a problem will develop later. 
Secondly,
when you cut the stamp there are three things to remember: make sure
you use sharp scissors; cut in as a straight a line as possible; make
sure you don't cut into or cut off any of the image.What I am writing here only applies clear mount or photpolymer stamps. Wood mount stamps are not quite as straight forward.
There
will be times when you want some stamps, for example A Little Wild, where
you want the image as one complete image.This is easily accomplished by aligning the two stamps on the block side by side, ensuring you don't leave a gap between them.
With wood mount you'd need to adhere one part of the stamp on the top of the wood block and the other part on the opposite side.
To line the two up you'd need to use a Stamp-a-ma-jig.
By cutting stamps, as well as making life easier, it also increases the versatility of your stamps, especially where a stamp includes a sentiment.
Another occasion when I have cut clear mount stamps is when I find I consistently get stamp marks from the edges of the rubber around my stamped image.
This is a result of pressing the stamp too heavily onto
the ink pad, or pressing too hard when stamping the image.For me, although both these circumstances are relatively easy to remedy, with some stamps I forget they need extra care, and find it easier to trim some of the excess rubber off!
That's about it for now. Until tomorrow, happy crafting.
JanB.
