Rubber Stamping In Your Scrapbook

Rubber Stamping is a popular craft, and has gained popularity with the scrapbooking crowd recently. Rubber Stamps can become very expensive, as can scrapbooking. Here are a few ideas to incorporate stamping in to scrapping, simply and cheaply.
Buying Rubber Stamps

1. There are two basic types of rubber stamps- Mounted (attached to a wood or sometimes a foam block), and unmounted, sometimes called UM. Mounted stamps are generally more expensive and larger to store. Usually, the block it is mounted to will feature an image of the stamp with ideas for decorating or coloring your design. The Unmounted stamps are very small and flat, as well as very inexpensive. UM stamps don't take up much room, but you will need to buy a Stamp Mounting Kit. A stamp Mounting Kit will include either Repositional (can be removed from the stamp) adhesive or permanent adhesive, as well as blocks to mount to, and usually some kind of thin padding to 'cushion' your stamp.
   
2. There are two basic types of ink pads- Pigment or Ink. Pigment inkpads stay moist for practically forever ( I have a Pigment pad from 1991 that I still use faithfully). They allow you to stamp light colors on to dark paper. If you want to use Embossing Powder, you are going to need a Pigment Ink Pad. Pigment Ink Pads also require a spray setter if you wish to use it on glossy paper since this ink never really dries. Regular Ink Pads are made with a more liquid ink, which can bleed into fiberous paper but dries quickly. Regular ink pads are not recommended for glossy papers.
   

On this Fourth Of July layout, I used red, blue, gold and silver inkpads and three stamps- a larger firecracker, a medium heart, and a small heart. The stamps were used to decorate the double photo mats, the journaling block, and the letters July and USA. Also note that I used inkpads to accent the stars at the top, rubbing the edges of the star, then randomly 'stamping' the inkpad on the star. On one page, the star was inked with gold, the second star has red ink on it.

This is a close-up of the second page, to show the stamping detail. The three stamps, and four inkpads cost me less than $10 for all seven items, bought on sale. The firecracker stamp will work well for summer or military pages, as well as Chinese New Year layouts. The two hearts can be used again in just about any layout.

Stamps come in a million sizes and a billion shapes. The cheapest are not always inferior.

Now, how to incorporate rubber stamping into a scrapbook:

1. Make custom papers by randomly stamping all over a plain piece of cardstock. Vary the angle you hold the stamps. You can make background papers, mats, or even cut tags from this paper.
2. Try creating a border for a page with a row or column of stamps dancing across the page. Stamp in just all four corners, or try filling in the gaps between photos.
3. Stamp small images on tiny tags or round tags, then string them across your page. Stamp a round tag, hang a string from it, and you've made a balloon.
4. Stamp on vellum. This looks very elegant if you use embossing powder.
5. Stamp on die cut or plain letter stickers to add pizazz to your page. When I do this, I vary the way I hold the stamp, sometimes overlapping one delicate design over another.

This is a Vacation layout, using the same two heart stamps as the previous layout, as well as the blue and red inkpads. The tag in the title block is inked with the red inkpad to add dimension.

I varied stamping angles on the paper, allowing some of the hearts to go over the edge of the page.

There are many stamping techniques. One way to get more use from your stamps is by using different techniques so the image appears a bit different each page.
I hope this has inspired you to try rubber stamping. It is a beautiful and fun hobby and craft.