Stamping Lessons: Hard Won

Going into design mode.  Not a bad time to do this as I've yet to attract followers.  Please pardon the mess.

Stamping and scrapbooking.  Difficult to separate the two.

I've learned over the past year there are many styles of stamps, and many types of inks.  There doesn't seem to be a locale that supplies comprehensive orientation to stamping... and this blog will not become the exception.  I can, however, offer tips as experience provides.

The easiest type of stamp to work with are very simple lined, wood-mounted blocks. ( A bonus is finding a stamp with a pre-coloured picture on the back side.  This comes in handy for people without formal art training or an innate sense of artist flourish in shading when colouring in the stamped image.)  I quickly advanced to clear acrylic stamps, which are a pleasure to work with, as well.  The foam-back cling stamp presents a few challenges to the beginner, but certainly worth adding to a stamp collection.  The most difficult stamps to work with are stamps of any type with great detail, or those covering a very large area.

I bought a beautiful stamp last year featuring the Three Wise Men, created by Stampendous, measuring 4 x 5.25 inches:

2011 Family Christmas Cards Mailed (1 of 3)

 

As easily seen, there's a great deal of detail to the stamp.  The problem encountered in earlier stamping was getting a consistent image.  No amount of careful pressing around the stamp offered a finely detailed image.  Finally, I picked up a book and ran it across the stamp.  It worked like a charm.  Martin, my ever-suffering husband, improved on the idea by using a rolling pin. We were knocking four stamped images out every couple of minutes.

Along those lines, it also took some experimenting to discover not all acrylic blocks are equal when using the clear cling-on acrylic stamps.  I initially bought a large block thinking of the range of sizes this would be useful for without investing a great deal of money on the front side.  That's a beginner's mentality.  I ended with a very wobbly, unstable base to manage smaller stamps.  Since then I've added several different size blocks and produce crystal clear stamped images about 98% of time.  (One should not attempt stamping when feeling shaky or around children bouncing off your body!)

Finally, I'm not adverse to writing notes/comments on the wooden blocks.  It may be another four years before a stamp is picked back up and these notes will come in handy should a tip be forgotten.  My collections includes statements such as:  "very clear/easy," "use rolling pin," "lightly ink," and et cetera.  Even should I decide to sell them in the future, the buyer may appreciate the notation.

I see too many people not incorporate stamping into scrapbooking/card making because of initial failures.  Stamping adds so much variety to pages to discard this image creation form out of hand.

So ink it up!