Alpha stamps are wonderful little things.  I was so excited to not only see an alpha stamp set with the planner kit this month but also to see that it was an outline alpha!  So many options come to mind with them, and I hope this post will help you use them not only in your planners but also in your journals and memory keeping projects!!

These effects would also work wonderfully with Christine’s new Memory keeping class to help create titles, and catch words in your journaling!

Beware this post is a little photo heavy, with 12 different ways to decorate the alpha’s, and please do share in the comments below if you tried on of them, or if come up with another way, I would love to see more done with this alpha!

First up, is just simple lines with a black pen.  I used a 05 Micron pen for these lines, you can add other lines than just one on each letter as well, try stripes in the tiny space, or even fill it in solid to anchor the letter.

Second is writing in the letters, you can use them for dates, names, words for an acrostic (“poem” using the letters in a word vertically to spell other words horizontally), tasks, like using the O for a dr appt and put the time in the middle of the O

Third, use a grey highlighter, or grey marker to add a drop shadow, admittedly I am really bad at this one, but you get the idea!

Fourth, we have the write over, so stamp in either black or another color, then fill in the stamps with a lighter color, then use drawn out cursive to write the same or even different words over top of the letters.  you can use a pencil first to do your cursive if you wish before you write over with marker.

Fifth is drawing patterns in the letters, this can be done with different colored markers or even straight black markers.  You can even do it backward and make it look like the letters on a patterned background as I did with the Y.

Sixth is a light marker filled in under speckled/dotted dark marker gradually thinner as you go up or down your letter.

Seventh is Ombre, you can do it with pencil crayons, or markers, always starting with a full light layer, and then gradually get darker as you go down or up your letters, you could even to a sideways ombre, you could also use different colors to create a gradient ombre effect.

The eighth way is having a highlight point, here I chose the middle of the alpha, and shaded the top and the bottom in towards the middle.  If you want your middle in the same place on all the letters, do a light shade on all the letters where you want the highlight to fall, and then work towards that on either side of the highlight.

The ninth way is another highlight, this time with a white gel pen, you may have to go over the dry pen a couple of times as it does sometimes take on the color a bit below the highlight.

Tenth why not try plain old coloring in, here I used a rainbow of colors to color in each letter.

Eleventh, this one is fun, and more direct coloring done here, but playing a bit with the traditional color wheel, I chose Yellow and Blue as my main letter colors, and where ever they crossed paths I used green to make them seem transparent.

and twelfth, and last but definitely not least, use the shade/patterned stamps that came with the alpha to fill in parts of the alpha!  So much fun, they look kind of like a patchwork quilt!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post all about the Alpha Stamp set that we got in our Planner kits, and I can’t wait to see what you all do with yours!