I love the story behind how Julee & Verve got started..." I’ve never been much of an entrepreneur. My husband always wanted his own business, but I kind of liked the stability of working for someone else. After several years in a really stressful graphic design job, I decided to take a little break and then see if I could drum up enough part-time graphic design business to be able to stay at home and choose my own deadlines. Somewhere during my break, I discovered Splitcoaststampers.com when I was browsing online and started having fun with my stamps again completing the daily challenges. After my six month sabbatical from the working world was up, it was time to figure out what I needed to do to make enough money to stay out of the corporate rat race. I finally decided to combine my love for stamping and my love for design and test out the waters by making a very small investment in some rubber stamps and see if anybody wanted them. Well, my stamps ended up being more popular than I had dreamed they would be, so I took the idea of starting my own stamp company and ran with it. The rest is Verve history." Now how cool is that! Sounds like it was meant to be doesn't it? Well once you take a look at Verve Stamps you'll understand why they were such a hit!
When I asked her about what inspires her designs it was fun to read her reply...."I’m inspired by just about everything. I’m always looking for patterns and interesting design elements in things. The other day I was at someone’s house and they had the most intriguing butter dish. I literally almost stuck my nose in the butter, I was so fascinated by the intricate pattern of the dish. LOL! I immediately came home and sketched what I remembered of the pattern and I’m sure some version of it will make it into stamp form sometime soon. People are always sending suggestion for stamps, too. It seems like I never run out of ideas – just out of time to turn them all into stamps." Isn't that funny!! Now, I have never stuck my nose in a butter dish BUT I can relate to the excitement she felt when she saw it! I'm sure we can all understand those feelings when inspiration strikes out of no where!
Verve Stamps are clear photopolymer, made in the USA. She originally offered our stamps in unmounted red rubber, but has since discontinued those lines. VS has 30 different stamp sets at this time but Julee said she is trying to release 4-6 new sets each month. At times that may stretch into every other month depending on manufacturing delays and running the company by herself. VS is an angel company but Julee asks that all images be hand-stamped (no mechanical reproduction please). Julee does accept international orders and all of the details can be found on their Shipping & Returns page.
Now on to the fun stuff....Stamp Talk!! Julee said that their most popular stamp sets are - Petals & Stems, Anniversary Birds, Fluttering By, Serenity and Winter Wonder Remixed. These are all great stamp sets but I have to say my favorites are Filigree Fantasy ~ who could resist all those great swirls & scrolls; Floral Whimsy which not only has a great "build your own" flower vase set but also includes 3 extremely versatile sentiments! and Thankful Blossoms - a combination of beautiful flowers, sentiments and butterflies.
I don't want to give it all away, you'll have to explore the rest of the awesome stamp sets offered by Verve Stamps for yourself!
Hope you've all had a wonderful weekend!
Any Olympic fans out there??
Been rootin' for my fav's but they are all winners in my book!
Next week I'll be sharing some fun projects which incorporate dominoes!
I'm a HUGE Verve fan.... I think Julee has some of the BEST sentiment stamps in the buisness too... and she is a total sweetie!
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