Getting Started

with Rubber Stamps

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A few simple steps are all that is required to start creating rubber stamping projects.

· One of the most important steps to making successful rubber stamped images is making sure your rubber stamp is evenly coated with ink. This sounds so simple is should not even be necessary to mention but it is amazing how even long time stampers sometimes have a problem with this so it is necessary that we mention this fact for the novice stampers.

· Inking a Stamp That is Bigger Than the Ink Pad:

· Lay the stamp onto a flat surface with the wood side down and gently press the ink pad repeatedly over the surface of the rubber stamp. Remember to do this gently as too much pressure will result in getting ink where you do not want it.

· Inking a Stamp That is Smaller Than the Ink Pad:

· Small rubber stamps can be inked by gently tapping the stamp onto the ink pad or you can use the same method as above. I prefer the method above as I can see clearly when the stamp has enough ink. Again so this gently as you do not want to over ink your stamp.

· Inking a Large Outline Image Stamp:

· If you are using a large outline stamp with a lot of open areas in the design, it is most important to do your best not to get ink into the open areas which will result in leaving smudge marks when you stamp the image. Now that I have said that almost everyone at some time gets a bit of ink on areas we don’t want so how do we handle that? Simple clean the ink from those areas with a Q-tip or the corner of a baby wipe.

· Multi-Color Ink Pads:

· Multi-color or rainbow layered ink pads can give beautiful dimension to your stamped images resulting in different coloured stripes to your image. This is quite easy to do but just remember to carefully & gently place your stamp on your project so as to not smear the ink.

· What on Earth is a Brayer?

· Well a brayer is a small roller that can add another technique to your rubber stamping. They can be used to apply ink to background papers, your can use them with your multi-coloured ink pads Brayers can be used to load a large stamp with ink, or to apply ink to background papers and they can be used to ink a large stamp.
Sometimes they come with patterns which add a great look to your background.