Thomas Kinkade...a new collection of art stamps

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Reported by Julia Stainton

I've loved the art of Thomas Kinkade for as long as I can remember. The stunning detail and beautiful depiction of light has always captured my attention. My mom too, was a great fan and received many Thomas Kinkade gifts from me over the years. The images are always so touching and nostalgic and invoke remembrance of the simple joys of life, home and family. I also love how his work is inspirational...a subtle meaning behind each work.



I was so excited to have this opportunity to review this new line of rubber stamps. I would never have imagined trying to take the detail and depth of Thomas Kinkade designs and translating them into a rubber stamp product. The Cornish Heritage Farms owners had the vision and talent to do this and I'm quite amazed with the results. Each minute detail has been expertly captured to make one of the highest quality images that I have seen. If you haven't heard of Cornish Heritage Farms, they are a family run rubber stamp manufacturers that have a fabulous selection of high quality images.



The first thing I noticed upon receiving these stamps in the mail was their quality. As a concept desgner that works with rubber stamps daily, I was most impressed. The thick solid wood blocks, thick foam padding and high definition of the rubber designs are extremely high quality. Beautiful reproductions on front...great for coloring inspiration.

This Thomas Kinkade stamp line comes in two sizes...large and vignette. I love how flexible they both are for card designing. A beautiful scene stamped it monochromatic ink makes a quick elegant card with little extra work. If you love coloring and don't mind spending the extra time, the design is fabulous for coloring in many different mediums. If you are looking for a smaller stamp with room for lots of embellishing and other creativity on your design, the vignette option is a smaller stamp that focuses in on the main point of design. Framed in a beautiful oval with a rectangular frame, this option is elegant and very quick to color in. The large stamps are 4 5/8" x 3 3/4" in size and fit on a standard card. There is still enough room to add in a sentiment. I found using a 5.5" square card design worked great for this size stamp, allowing for just that little extra space to add my personal touch to the design.

These stamp designs are really flexible and great for a wide audience. A huge slice of the market is lacking designs that are suitable for men. I love designing masculine cards but they can be difficult. I have to tell you, my husband does not quite see my fascination with rubber stamping and papercrafting. While I was creating these designs though, he was quite impressed. He rarely takes notice of my work but this time I actually got a lot of positive feedback from him. Actually he even suggested I get more of them and I can tell you, that is all the encouragement I need. I'm going to be ordering at least another two of the large scenes. I can't wait to create some Christmas designs with those winter scenes...gorgeous!

As part of writing this review, I decided to try out the Thomas Kinkade rubber stamps with a variety of inks and coloring options. I wanted to see for myself, how flexible these stamps really were and just what mileage I could get from them. My first design used the Wishing Well Vignette image with my Stampin Up pastel chalks. After getting a great image stamped in black ink onto vanilla cardstock, I used the tip of a q-tip add color with my pastel chalks. The soft look is beautiful and very easy to do. This coloring option is one of the quickest and even someone with limited coloring skills should have a good level of success with this.

Wishing Well Hello - pastel coloring




For the next design, I decided to try out my brand new Copic markers to color the cottage image. A daunting task with a new medium to be sure. With only four designs experience, I was a little nervous about trying out such an intricate design.Only half my order had arrived, the others were still in transit and so my palette was limited. I started by laying on the light greens of the foliage and building up color from there. The Copic markers can tend to have a heavy look to them so start light and I found using a dabbing impressionist technique to add the color worked well for me. I was really excited with how the design turned out. It does take some time and skill which I'll need to build on but it was truly enjoyable to do. I'll definitely be trying this again in the future.


Cottage Thinking of You - Copic Marker coloring



Watercoloring is one of my favorite image coloring techniques. I love its transparent look and these images work perfectly with it. Another plus is it is much faster to do and always looks nice. A quick and light watercoloring technique will add a more "arty" look or you can also make it more detailed if you wish. Because of the fine detail of these images, I would suggest using a very fine, quality brush for best results. To create the following design, I used Stampin Up Classic inks and a watercolor brush. This design is a smaller design using the vignette style stamp and a 4" x 4" card base. Perfect for a quick little note.



Summer Wishing Well Note - watercolored with ink

One of my favorite ways of coloring detailed images is with colored pencils and Gamsol...a high-quality odorless mineral spirits. This technique is very easy to control and work with one the detailed designs. I love the fact that it is very relaxing and portable. If you want to color in a number of images, it is easy to stamp them ahead of time and bring them with you to work on. The mineral spirits blend the pigment well and make shading easier to do.

Masculine Fishing Card Design - colored pencils and gamsol





While the following design is technically not a "colored in" image, I wanted to try out how the Brilliance Ink would work with these detailed images. This ink gives a fabulous metallic shine and is still able to pick up the detail of the design. I loved the look of stamping the silver ink onto a charcoal gray. Pairing it up with this charcoal and ivory paper, I was able to get a very elegant look, one with which the cottage looked like a fairy tale. Using a Happily Ever After sentiment on this inside of the design, I think this will make a beautiful, unique wedding design.

Happily Ever After - Silver ink on Charcoal Gray


When working with a different type of rubber stamp, there are always new tips you can pick up along the way to make them work well for you. I found that the Palette Hybrid Inks by Stewart Superior worked really well as did Tsukineko's Brilliance Inks. I would steer away from craft inks as they can become quite gummy and may not capture the detail of the image for you. If you find you are having difficulty inking up your larger stamps, try inking them with a brayer and ink the paper by leaving the stamp face up. Simply apply even pressure over the top of the paper to transfer the image.


When starting to write this article, I had planned on creating three designs to showcase the beauty of these stamps. I have to tell you, I just couldn't stop at that! The stamps are so great to work with I created six and I know I'm not done yet. New ideas keep popping into my head. If you are interested in these stamps, make sure you check out the Cornish Heritage Farms on-line gallery. It is filled with lots of gorgeous samples and inspiration for you. I admit, the Thomas Kinkade stamps are not inexpensive but considering the size and quality, you are definitely getting what you pay for! These are timeless stamps that will last for a lifetime with proper care.