How To Avoid Stamp Masking with Gel Print Lift

Avoid stamp masking, save time, and move on with your card making. I don’t know about you, but I find stamp masking time-consuming and fiddly. Learn two simple techniques to avoid stamp masking.

Stamp Masking: What Is It? How to do it.

Stamp masking creates depth by layering stamped images on top of each other. Start by stamping an image on a card front.

Then stamp the same image on a scrap of paper, Post-It note, or masking paper and fussy cut the image. Fussy cut close to or slightly inside the stamp outline. This is the mask.

Cover the image on the card front with the mask. Stamp a second image over the masked image. Remove the mask. The second image will appear behind the first image as the fern leaves below.

YouTube Tutorial | Gel Print Lift Technique

Learn what stamp masking is and how to do it. And, learn a simple gel print lift technique to save time by avoiding stamp masking. Watch here or in HD on YouTube.

Save Time: Avoid Stamp Masking

While I love the look of stamp masking, I don’t enjoy the process. Some stamp companies, Altenew & Stampendous, provide coordinating stamp masks. But, I still don’t want to stamp mask.

Why? It’s time-consuming and I usually end up smearing the ink or miss stamping an image. One way I avoid stamp masking is by using digital stamps. The card above is a digital stamp composition.

Avoid Stamp Masking with Digital Stamps

Digital stamps provide transparent png images with outlines and white backgrounds. So you can layer as many as you want without having to mask.

Plus, you can resize/recolor/mirror digital stamps. You don’t have to wait for the laser printing to dry. You can color right away. Though, I do recommend heat-setting inkjet prints.

Avoid Stamp Masking with Clear Stamps

There are multiple techniques to avoid stamp masking with clear stamps. My favorite is the gel print lift technique demonstrated in the video above.

But, heat embossing works too. Simply heat emboss the forefront image. Heat set the image and stamp another image on top with clear embossing ink. Before heat setting, knock off any embossing powder that overlaps the first stamp with a dry paintbrush.

Additionally, die-cutting and fussy cutting work to layer images and avoid stamp masking. But, it’s time-consuming. Create a truly unique card by using a mix of all of these techniques.

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