Totally addicted to Mint!

The newest awesome toy from Silhouette is finally in my hands! This little thing could almost be mistaken for an Apple TV, it's so small. It's the Mint!

I had the pleasure of seeing this baby in action at the Silhouette Summit that I attended, and I was already in love. 

When the package arrived I was a little intimidated at first but just couldn't wait to try this thing out, and an hour later I already had a stamp made! I am super excited about this machine because this means that we are so much closer to having a BIG thermal imaging printer for stencil making and whatever else you can think of! All of this technology touches on the same idea that GOCCO machines use, using heat to burn an image into thermal media. So in essence, this little contraption could be a future self contained screen printing machine. (fingers crossed)

Anyway, I wanted to make something fast, for the holidays and personalized. So I threw together this little stamp that I will use on my Christmas gifts:

And loaded up my new Mint software, which was surprisingly painless, as was the entire stamp making process! Its was so ridiculously easy, here were the steps:

1. Open your design

2. Choose stamp size

3. Center image

4. Choose filter (if needed, I think you might only really need these if you're trying to use a photo)

5. Click "Start Mint" ***Before putting in stamp***

6. Put in stamp cartridge 

TRA-LA! Thats all there is to it, the entire process took about 10 minutes, on my first try! Here are the results: 

Here is the stamp fresh out of the Mint and mounted on its block:

Waiting for the ink to absorb,

And stamping to get all the excess ink off. You can see the detail that this little machine can achieve, The only reason my stamp looks a little "messy" is because I added grungy textures to it so it wouldn't be too perfect.

Look how cute it is on my little Gift Card Bag!

I can't wait to make more stamps, my head is already filled with ideas! The possibilities are endless, you can use photos, which is something that the Silhouette definitely cannot do. It opens up so many more ways for you to personalize something, and FAST. I highly recommend grabbing one of these,  especially if you already an avid Silhouette-er. Has anyone else had success stories with this little toy yet? I would love to see what others come up with. :) Happy stamping! 

xoxo