Product Review - Acrylic Sock Monkey Stamp

Lately, I have had a little sock monkey mania as I create a knit Christmas tree skirt for my friend Jacquelyn's Epic Sock Monkey Christmas.

My new found appreciation of all things sock monkey is one of the reasons I jumped at the opportunity to review this adorable acrylic stamp from Stacey at Red Heel Revue on Etsy. Her shop has stamps of everything from a sock monkey bride and groom to sock monkey ballerinas and magicians. Who knew that sock monkeys were such busy little critters?

Also, don't miss Stacey's other Etsy shop Asspocket Productions. It's filled with great non-sock monkey stamps and you can even have many of them customized!

I was so excited when my stamp from Stacey arrived. Within minutes I had peeled the plastic backing from the stamp, affixed the stamp on one of my acrylic blocks, and gave it a whirl with some black ink.

This little guy is adorable!

I was impressed by the fine, crisp details on the stamp, from the ornaments on the tree to the texture on the monkey's body.




My first project idea was gift tags. I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut some basic tags out of white cardstock. Then I stamped my little buddy onto the tags and lightly colored him in with colored pencils.

 Too cute!

Then I made some fancier folded tags. Again, I used my Cameo to cut the tags from cardstock. However, instead of stamping with ink, I decided to try embossing.










I simply stamped the image with embossing ink, sprinkled on some black and gold embossing powder then used a heat tool to melt the powder.

The slightly raised image was absolutely lovely.

After using different stamping techniques on cardstock, the next logical step for me was to try the stamp on different types of paper.

I stamped nine little monkeys on 2 1/2 inch vellum squares with bamboo colored ink.








These are going to be a perfect accent for some Christmas cards.












Then I stamped nine little monkeys on 2 1/2 inch gloss paper squares with gray ink.












I thought the image was sharp on plain paper. It was even nicer on the gloss paper.

Again, I think I'll be using these for some Christmas cards.

Pros

• cute sock monkey design
• fine details
• worked well with different types of inks and papers
• unmounted so it can be used with the acrylic blocks I already have

Cons

• once you start stamping with this cute little guy, you may not be able to stop yourself

Many thanks to Stacey at Red Heel Revue and Asspocket Productions for providing the stamp. I absolutely loved it!


Stay tuned... I'll be sharing a tutorial for the Christmas cards I created with the vellum and glossy squares I stamped.