All Paper Arts

Last week I wrote a little bit about my favorite stamp pads. Today I am going to try to help give some pointers for getting a perfect stamped image. My very first hint is never adhere what you are stamping to the paper or card first. The reason is because when you stamp on your paper or cardstock if you make a mistake you can just simply turn it over and try it again. That way you haven’t wasted the paper.

I hardly ever ink my stamp the old fashioned way. IE: Stamp Pad on table you push stamp into pad. The reason is I don’t get as clean of an image when I do that. Several things can go wrong. You can get too much ink and then your image has fat lines. You can press too hard into the pad and then you get the cut lines of the rubber stamp. Or the ink isn’t distributed evenly on the entire stamp leaving you with a partial image or an image where the outer lines are good and the inside lines are too light. Instead, I like to hold my stamp in one hand and my ink pad in the other and just tap my stamp with the ink. This way I have control of where the ink is going and I can make sure all of the lines of the image are covered. It is also a lot harder to over ink this way.

When it is time to actually stamp your image remember to have a steady hand. I don’t know where the idea that you have to rock your stamp comes from but that is the very worst thing you can do. I think maybe it has to do with being in school and the ink pads being to dry? When ever I teach a class to stamp I can tell who has never stamped before because the first they thing do is rock the image. Just firmly press the stamp. There is no rocking or pushing the stamp involved. Also, remember if your image comes out without complete lines you can’t put the stamp right back on top of your image. Unless, you are a miracle worker this hardly ever works instead you get a double image even worst then from rocking the stamp.
I hope these tips help you. If you have any questions please let me know and I will do my best to answer them. Happy Stamping!

rubber stamping, card making, scrapbooking