For me it all started with these rubber stamps. That’s right this cute little butterfly art stamp and this set of alphabet stamps.
I can remember my first rubberstamps. My brother gave them to me for my birthday. It was a butterfly art stamp, and set of alphabet stamps, that was 15 years ago. I can remember thinking to myself “what am I going to do with these rubberstamps”? Boy did I find out what to do with them. I made cute little butterfly note cards and I remember coloring them with a colored pencil (since that is all that I had back then or crayons), then with the alphabet stamps I stamped my family and friends name and of course finished it with a butterfly. Holy crow, he is the one that created my obsession with art stamps, and I am so happy that he did, thanks Mike.
What can I say; I Love Rubber Art Stamps and all the rubber stamping supplies that go along with them. Take a look at just some of the art stamps that I have. I have labeled each drawer and bin so I kind of know what is inside. I also have a few scattered around my craft studio on shelves. I told you that I Love Art Stamps. Now do you believe me?
Rubberstamps have come a long way. There are a ton of manufacturers for Art Stamps, depending on what you are looking for. A long time ago the only kind of art stamp that was available was the red rubber stamp mounted on a wood block. Now, those stamps are still available but there are also clear un-mounted art stamps that you take off of a cling sheet and adhere to an acrylic block. When you are done you just clean the stamp and take off the acrylic block and out back on the plastic sheet or in a clear plastic CD case.
The great thing about these art stamps is that you can see exactly where your image will be stamped on your card stock. This gives you less room for error (even though there is never an error in art, it just makes a different masterpiece then you expected)
What I love about the acrylic block rubber stamps is when you are working with alphabet stamps. The reason is you can have the correct spacing between each letter and word. When I have used alphabet stamps that were wood mounted, I usually had crooked words and phrases on my card or scrapbook page.
Another cool thing about these clear un-mounted rubberstamps is that they do not take up so much room as the original wood block art stamps. So if you do not have a lot of space to store your rubberstamps then this is the ideal way to go. I have two ways that I store my clear un-mounted rubberstamps. One is in a 3 ring binder, and the other in my Crop in Style Stamp Store tote. The stamp store can hold hundreds in the drawers.
There are also red rubber un-mounted stamps that you can purchase. They are cheaper than mounted rubberstamps. You can then mount them any way that you want; either on a wood block or use the ez-mount foam system (I will explain that in a near future article)
The last kind of rubberstamps that I can think of is the pre-inked art stamps. I have some art stamps that are pre-inked wheels. They are great for backgrounds or borders. All you do is insert the small cartridge of ink into the handle of the rubberstamps wheel, insert the wheel and away you go.
Well, as you can see I have A LOT of rubberstamps. And with all these art stamps I do not have any duplicates and I can honestly say that I use or have used each and every one.
Make it a Great Day and don’t forget to leave time to Craft!
