My Review of the Yoobi Stamp Rollers

If you love stamping on cards, paper, journals and planners then you are going to enjoy the Yoobi
Stamp Rollers.  The Yoobi Stamp Rollers are marketed mostly towards back to school crafting supplies. However, I love using the Yoobi Stamp Rollers in my travelers journal.  I recently signed up for a fun 30 Day Bullet Journaling Challenge and was looking for something easy to use to decorate my bullet journal.  I came across the Yoobi Stamp Rollers when I saw them displayed at the Yoobi store in Arcadia, California.  I was intrigued with their company motto:

 "For every Yoobi item you purchase, a Yoobi item will be donated to a
classroom in need, right here in the U.S. It's that simple."

Pennant Flags in Red Ink

The single ink color stamp rollers sell for $4.99 and the three ink color stamp sells for $6.99.  According to the website, the inks are refillable. However, I did not find the refills on the site.  The stamp rollers come with covers that fit fairly securely and that helps keep the ink from drying out.  These rollers are very smooth and I had no trouble using them on my journal pages. I even tried them on my pocket travelers journal pages.

The Yoobi Stamp Roller dimensions are 1.14" x 1.1" x 2.28.  This is a great size for small hands to use to create some great kids crafts.  I lent them to my neighbors kids and they decorated some gift tags with them. 

3 ink color - Winter Stamp Roller

My favorite Yoobi Stamp Roller is the Winter Stamp Roller.  This is a 3 ink colored stamp that leaves the cutest winter Design.  I think it is perfect for creating fun holiday cards.  I am going to use it for an easy kid craft at church.  The rollers area really easy for kids to use. Here is a close up of the stamped image which is so cute!

Winter Stamp Roller

I stamped each roller onto one of my travelers notebook pages.  I love decorating my planner pages with fun designs and these worked perfectly.  The ink is pretty pigmented and does show a little through my Travelers Notebook paper.

The back side of my TN Notebook paper.

Yoobi Stamp Roller on Hobonichi Page.

I tested it on my Hobonichi Planner Page and it rolled very smoothly.  The Hobonichi Paper is very thin so I did get some shadowing on the back side of the stamped paged.

Yoobi Stamp Roller Ghosting on back of stamped Hobonichi page.

I also tested it on the paper of my Happy Planner which is a much thicker paper.  Once again, the stamp roller worked great.

Yoobi Stamp Roller Tested on a Happy Planner Page.

The Yoobi Stamp Roller did not leave any ghosting or show through on the back of the stamped page.

Back side of the stamped Happy Planner Page.

The Yoobi company did a great job with the patterns they are offering in the single ink stamps too.

As you can see, each roller shows the image in the ink color on the actual roller which makes it easy to tell which roller image you are working with.  I have used others that were not as easy to see and that makes me very appreciative that Yoobi took the time to do this for their customers.

Cupcakes in Pink (Magenta) Ink

The four designs and colors are:
Pennant Flags in Red Ink
Trees with Birds in Green Ink
Flowers in Orange Ink
Cupcakes in Pink (Magenta) Ink

I am really happy with my purchase and love that these stamps are kid friendly.  I plan on using them of for some fun kids crafts in this upcoming holiday season.  My family loves all the items we purchased for back to school from the Yoobi store and look forward to their new releases.

Note: I was not paid for this review. I purchased all the items with my own money at the Yoobi store.

Citysketch London: A Doodle Book for Dreamers: A Fun Pocket Travel Journal

Citysketch London is a cute light weight doodle book with nearly 100 creative prompts to inspire sketches of the city.  If you are planning on going to London or just dream about it, this is a fun book to inspire your own quick sketches or doodles.

The Book offers over 90 creative prompts to help the reader with ideas.  I love to use sketch books as traveling journals where I can put tickets, jot down thoughts and other fun paraphernalia  that I may collect on my trips.  This Citysketch London has some interesting information on different locations in London and gives the reader some some ideas for choosing a location or subject to sketch.

The prompts are easy to do like in the "Borough Market" section, the authors talk about some of varieties of foods sold in the area.  It also offers a great tips like warning the reader that the market is busy on Saturday mornings and will be crowded so the reader can plan accordingly.  Also the prompt for that section is to "complete a sketch of your favorite foods" with a few other ideas.  The prompts are all straight forward and easy to do. The main points is that the authors are trying to encourage the reader to actively participate in their surroundings and take note of the many small and interesting things London has to offer. The book provides some space for doodles or to adhere paraphernalia. I would say you have a half page of drawing space for most prompts.  Which is enough room for a quick sketch or to use for a short journal entry.  The video will provide a better idea of the space available for it.




Of course you do not have to do the prompts but they are fun and provide some interesting information along the way.  If you do take it on the road with you, I recommend using a pen loop or band to attach a pen or pencil to the sketch book to make it even easier to sketch when inspiration hits.

What types of sketch or journal books do you like to take on the road with you?

Mixed Media Pocket Travel Journal Video Tutorial by Jeannine Stein

This week Stefanie Girard at the Craftside blog posted a fun easy to follow tutorial on how to make

Mixed Media Pocket Travel Journal with a map.

a mixed media pocket travel journal, featuring author Jeannine Stein.

Jeannine Stein is known for her book Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books in which she teaches how to make mixed media books out of a variety of materials.

Her other book is  Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials which teaches basic book binding techniques and has some fun projects for the reader to make.  Re-Bound has 16 pages of patterns and templates, with excellent step-by-step directions that include hand drawn illustrations.  The book serves as a book binding primer for anyone who is new to book binding or just interested in the process.  Jeannine also includes some great repurposing book binding ideas that will inspire anyone to want to try their hand at making a book.

If you have ever wondered how to make a handmade book or just like working with paper, then the video posted today could just be the answer.  The video gives a short "How To Book Bind" tutorial that shows the viewer how easy it is to make a fun multi-media pocket travel journal with a pop out map (although you could substitute some other paper item in the place of the map).
 Note: if you look between Stefanie and Jeannine,

 you can see the cool re-purposed purple Guittards chocolate box book she made.




If you prefer written directions, Jeannine also wrote a great step-by-step tutorial of the pocket travel journal which Stefanie has also posted on the Craftside blog.   Below are some pics of other handmade books that Jeannine Stein has made.

So check out the video and leave comments to let the publisher know what types of videos you would like them to to put on YouTube (  I will forward any comments to the publisher).

Disclaimer :  No payment received for this post.  Stefanie and Jeannine are friends of mine who I think are really talented and create some pretty neat stuff.