Another Rubber Stamp Company is Closing

I just read an update on the Softpencil Studio facebook page that The Angel Company is closed.  I went to their website to check it out, and this is their statement:

"It is with great sadness that I must announce we are hanging up our wings.  These past several years our industry has faced enormous challenges and as a result, we have seen many companies close their doors.  We continued to hope we could see The Angel Company through this recession and back into prosperous days and we held onto this hope as long as we could.

One of the largest challenges affecting each of us is our industry not being able to support all of the direct sales companies in our field.  Even in a healthy economy, we are a niche market trying to compete for a very limited number of distributors.  As a small company, this has been a grueling challenge for us.  Times are tough for everyone ~ in direct sales and retail environments.

I would like to thank each of you for being an customer and Angel these past 14 years.  Indeed, it has been a pleasure to serve you.

The Angel Company"

We have lost so many fabulous rubber stamp companies, and many of them have been in the last year or so.  The bigger ones have had as many problems in this economy as the smaller ones.  I couldn't always budget to buy stamps from companies like Cornish Heritage Farms or The Angel Company, but I really loved so many of them and figured I could buy some of their items...later.  Well, later came, and they closed, so now people like me have to take a chance to get their favorites from Ebay, Etsy or other sites or stores.  I guess the lesson here is get them while you still can to help make sure that the company will be there tomorrow.    

~~~ Lee~~~

The Jelly Bean Prayer Card

This is an Easter card I made for a friend.  I won this stamp on eBay last year, and I believe it's from The Angel Company.  It's blue rubber like many others I got in the same package that were marked.

The sentiment was stamped with clear embossing ink onto The Paper Company Cool Metallic paper.  The embossing powder is Stampendous Pearlized Carnelian which was then heat set.  The image was matted with card stock onto My Mind's Eye Bloom & Grow DP.  The additional flourishes (I don't know who manufactured these clear stamps) were stamped onto white card stock & embossed with the Carnelian EP and then cut out and adhered with Ad Tech adhesive.  The rest of the items used were from my stash except for the Icicle Stickles on the flowers.  To finish it off, I used a white gel pen to create the doodles around the edges of the card.

I really love this sentiment, but I usually put it as a topper for a bag of jelly beans.  I think I'll have to make some more cards with this even though the deadline for Easter cards to Operation Write Home has already passed.  The Mother's Day deadline is April 1st, and graduation cards are due by April 19th, so if you don't already have these cards finished, you better hurry!  It's better to get the holiday cards in earlier than the dates listed, so the shippers aren't hit all at the last moment.  Always try to throw in some birthday, miss you, love you, anniversary, kid's cards and more in with every box you send.  They never have a deadline!

~~  Lee ~~