This news article is to feature my favourite stamps of 2011. These categories are from stamp-kingdom, where all these stamps can be found. I chose these stamps because they look good, not necessarily because of the message they convey.
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Miscellaneous
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All About You
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Animals
Anime/Manga
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Cartoons and Comics
Deviants
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Drinks and Food
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Holidays and Celebrations
Movies, TV and Music
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People and Celebrities
Pokemon
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Video Games
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Interview with ClefairyKid
Can you please give an introduction of yourself to enlighten readers who you are?
Hi, I’m ClefairyKid but my friends here call me Clefairy. I’ve been around dA for a number of years, but really got serious when I started this account two years ago. I started out making photo-manipulations, but then discovered stamp making soon after. Looking back I’ve made a lot of stamps, but also managed to continue branching out into all manner of other art forms, such as photography, digital art and pixel art, the last of which has really helped me to improve my stamp making. Outside of dA, I'm an art teacher and university student, living in Australia. I also run the "Where is the Devious Love?" news article series and get really carried away with profile customisation 
How did you find deviantART?
I found deviantArt just over 5 years ago, it’s hard to remember how I initially found it, but I had a couple of near empty accounts since I wasn’t too familiar with how the site worked and didn’t know anyone else that used it. Then a year after those first small attempts, my friend and I from high school would regularly be looking for things to keep us entertained during study and other sessions spent with computers, and we ended up spending a lot of our time typing random things like pickles and gumboots into the dA search engine to get really “kawaii” looking stuff come up. This sort of coincided with my getting into html/css/flash/javascript in my IT classes throughout year 11 and 12 (yes, I was/am a major geek, no exaggeration) and of course art classes there as well. By the end of school I guess I was getting the hang of the site much better and once I really understood how things worked I made the choice to really get this account off the ground and to actually improve at art through being a part of the community. Long winded and doesn’t really answer the question all that well, but oh well!
Who are your inspirations?
I have so many inspirations it’s ridiculous. I guess the thing is that I have inspirations for all the different types of art I’m into, not just stamps. My biggest stamp making idol by far has to be firstfear. She wasn’t the one I first saw who got me wanting to make stamps, but rather someone I discovered later and who really made my eyes pop as far as how much could be achieved with them. I’ve long felt that too many people have dismissed stamps as being too simple to ever be something to rival other art forms like digital painting, but I think firstfear shows us some incredibly lovely stamps, in a very, very unique and recognisable style. Other notable stamp makers I admire are Kezzi-Rose (her vintage style is just adorable), stuck-in-suburbia (nobody animates text and sparkles like she does), and prosaix (I don’t always agree with the stamp content but I cannot deny I admire their ability with stamps).
So far as listing my other many inspirations, there are Seiorai, etNoir, Adkage, BronzeHalo, wishuponapixel, staticwind, valokilljoy, pjuk, snut and Zagittorch just to name a few pixel artists who would have influenced my stamp making and pixelling. There is also a number of emoticonists such as LedMaiden, guitarcraze, Droneguard, Scorpion81, Mirz123, Indae, Krissi001, CookiemagiK, and SanguineEpitaph but to name a few emoticonists that would also have had an influence. Other inspirations in other areas would include tagl, Deserted-Dreams, danzzila, EliseEnchanted, Loonaki, 3lda, AngelasPortraits, f-wd, BloodlineV, meganjoy, emperpep, DigiKat04, Ophelia-Overdose, rianbowart, Gasara, Apofiss, SparkLum and TheDeathOfSen.
What interested you to create deviant Stamps?
Again, it’s getting kind of hard to remember but I’d say it’s probably thanks in part to the group stamp-kingdom and to bradleysays, being one of those really early influences during my time on this account. I guess I can say I kind of owe a lot of my progress in everything on this account to bradleysays as one of the first people I spoke to and saw as an influence in all areas of the site, from stamp-making to news articles to general site participation.
My first stamp was;
I got a bit of flack for it being a self-made support stamp but I figured at the time it was as good a way to start as any. I think stamp and icon contests also really gave me the motivation to keep striving for more, since my first ever icon made sometime after that;
resulted in my first ever subscription to dA, which lasted for a year too. I always mention that icon to those who think getting a sub is impossible, because I had literally never made an icon, and had only been making stamps for a short time too.
Tell us about 2 of your favourite stamps from other artists.
The two stamps I’ve picked come from my two biggest stamp making influences. The first is by Kezzi-Rose;
It’s a wonderful example of her iconic stamp making style, the scrolling background animation, neat white border with correct transparency, and adorable pixel subject and pastel colour scheme just make it one of my all time favourite stamps from her gallery. I especially love the little pixel cursive “love” and that was part of my inspiration to search for more interesting pixel fonts for my own stamps. I also got the idea to use hand-made, cute pixel creations for stamps from her as well.
My other favourite stamp would be;
by firstfear. No other stamp quite makes me smile like this one, the message and its construction are both equally beautiful. The thing that really strikes me the most about her stamps are the incredibly unique borders that make her stamps instantly recognisable, the bright colours and the impeccably neat pixel style she has, which reflects her skills as a vector artist. It’s a stamp that features prominently on my profile both for it’s message and design. It was she who inspired my use of coloured stamp borders.
Tell us about 2 of your favourite stamps that you have created.
The one that immediately comes to mind is;
I made it for a stamp-kingdom contest, with the theme “outside the stamp”. I found a wonderful tutorial from Mirz123 on how to make the most amazing pixel fireworks, and combined with the recent release of “Firework” by Katy Perry, I had my idea for the stamp. It was the most complicated and difficult stamp I think I’ve ever made, it took me something like 5 hours, to get both the overall design, fonts, layout, animation and so on all done from scratch. I was so amazingly proud I’d pulled it off and I felt like I learned a lot from making that one.
It’s incredibly hard to pick just one other stamp, since there’s a handful that are my most favourite, but I think this is one that marks an interesting point in my development;
It included a number of new ideas, such as taking out the main border lines and going crazy with every shine and sparkle effect I’d learned so far. I guess it’s just really nice that the visual design of the stamp really reflects the message it carries so much, and I always find it a challenge to animate more than one thing within the same timeline.
Do you have any last words?
Uh… I guess this stamp that stuck-in-suburbia made to stampify my usual quote will do;
"Don't ever settle for ordinary stamps! Make them as extraordinary as you can and just keep going!"
If anyone wants to read about stamp making or find some resources for it, go to this article; news.deviantart.com/article/14…, it’s probably got something for people at any ability level especially those who are new to stamps and may not know much about them. Thanks for interviewing me, it’s an honour 
stamps!!