Stamps, Ink & Paper - All About Rubber Stamping

I discovered the wonderful art of rubber stamping when a girlfriend sent me a pack of handmade baby thank you cards after my daughter was born. I had never considered myself to be a crafty person before, but rubber stamping really appealed to me and I fell in love.

And now I've received the compliment that I'm "really crafty" several times. I have to laugh because I know that I've acquired a learned skill--I wasn't born crafty. I've just kept on playing with stamps, ink and paper until I discovered how to emulate some really groovy stampers. Now I feel confident that if I just keep messing around with arts and crafts long enough, I'll figure out a way to make it my own. And what a blast it's been!

There's a little secret to great stamping. And I found out the hard way, you can't just "tap, tap" on your ink pad and expect a great image to appear. You've got to give it a twist!

The next time you are inking up a solid image stamp, like the flower pictured here, try giving your stamp a good twist or two on the ink pad. You'll pull more ink up and out of the pad and with your juicy stamp, you'll have more success stamping beautiful images!

Another little tip for beautiful stamping? Don't be so quick to remove your stamp from your paper. Think of it like this--you need to give the ink some time to soak into the paper!

A few (very kind) people have paid me the compliment of being a good watercolorist. I find this amusing because I do not think that I have any great talent. But I do know some secrets!

This skill of mine was first developed thanks to budgetary constraints. I first used this technique because at the time I did not own a set of markers. The ink pads in my collection have flexible lids. That means I'm able to just squeeze the lid down into the ink pad and create a pool of ink that I can pick up with a paintbrush!

What can you do if you don't have ink pads with flexible lids? Try recreating this trick by squishing your pad onto a plastic tray or styrofoam plate, anything that won't soak up the ink. Then just use a little water and a paintbrush to color in your images.

One of my favorite little tricks is the Rock and Roll technique, which is simple and so fun to do! All you do is simply ink up your stamp in a light color and then "rock" and "roll" the edges of it around an ink pad of a darker shade or color.

That's all there is to it, but the results can be so dramatic! It especially works great with flower stamps, like the I used in this sample card here.

The distressed (or "shabby") look is very popular right now. And there are so many little ways you can get this look:

• Distress your cardstock by ripping or tearing it.


• Rub your fingernail across the edge of your paper to fray it.


• Distress your stamped images by using sponges to add ink to the edges of your cardstock.


• Try taking your ink pad directly to your paper!


• Try using stamps--use multiple images for your background, like a script stamp coupled with a ornamental pattern. Take a look at your collection and think about how you can combine your images in new ways.

Just remember to take it slow, adding a little bit at a time. Have fun!

Did you know that you can use bleach as stamping ink? As you can imagine, you do need to be careful with this technique--not only can you ruin your clothes, bleach can eat away at rubber if you don't clean your stamps well! But with such beautiful results, it's worth all the risks.

Start by making yourself a bleach "ink pad" out of a plate and few folded paper towels. Carefully pour some bleach onto your ink pad--just enough to make the paper towels damp, not soaked.

Try stamping on a few test pieces of cardstock before you begin your main project. This will let you see what color is hiding behind your colored cardstock and it will also allow you to see if you have just the right amount of bleach in your "ink pad." Also remember, just like with a Polaroid, you need to give your images time to develop! Give it a minute to dry before you decide whether you've got a good image or not. And try stamping your image multiple times before re-inking your stamp to see what sort of results you get. The first image may be too blotchy and the third image may be too faint. Then you'll know you need to "stamp off" once on a piece of scratch paper before you stamp on your project. Just take your time and plan ahead and you'll end up with stunning results!

Spotlighting is a fun and easy technique that can have beautiful results. Here's how it's done:

First, stamp on your cardstock in an ink color that is darker than your paper. For this card, I used an dark eggplant color on this lighter orchid cardstock. Then, stamp on your cardstock (like I did on this tag here) in a water-fast black ink. "Water-fast" means it won't run when you watercolor it. I highly suggest a good ink like VersaFine.

Then, simply color in your image and then align your tag with the image you stamped directly onto the cardstock. It's that easy! And the results are so dramatic.

There is just so much you can do with a set of markers. They aren't just for coloring images in, like I once thought. Of course, they are great for that! But you can also use them like mini ink pads. I like to use them to "omit" the parts of a stamp that I don't want so that I can stamp just the parts I do!

Markers can also be used just like a paintbrush. Try layering on colors, just as if you were watercoloring. In this way, you can shade in solid images so that they won't look so flat and dull. You can also use them to color directly on to stamps you've already inked, like I did with this card here.