Stamping and Embossing

Collage Stamp

Actually, those who develop a hobby often do spend copious amounts of money on the supplies if they can possibly afford it. So if rubberstamping is or becomes a hobby for you, I'd expect you'd end up with a lot of stamps, inks, metallic powders, etc! The problem comes for those who have lots of hobbies, or who don't have the money to buy too much even for the things they're interested in.

You can often buy stamps on sale at various places, or concentrate on smaller stamps, or even buy some of those kids kits that have lots of "cute" little stamps to increase your supply.

You can also extend the number of stamps you have by having them made yourself. Local rubberstamp places will make them, but I like ReadyStamps.org online because they're inexpensive, and they'll also send the "molds" from making the stamps which can also be used with clays, etc. (this company also benefits the Cerebral Palsy Association).

For ReadyStamps, you'll send them a 9" x 7" sheet of white paper on which you've put as many images as you can fit (they can be drawn with ink, photocopied, printed out, etc, etc, and can also be text .... you'll just want nice dark black markings against the white so the stamps will have solid and crisp lines).

They'll send back a sheet of 9x7" sheet of rubber with your images turned into raised stamps, then you'll cut apart the individual images to use.
You can mount them --temporarily or permanently-- onto wood blocks, sheets or boxes of plexiglass, or other rigid things (...for clays we don't usually need to mount them at all). Or you could even make long designs for making "rolling stamps."
As I said, they'll send the "molds" too as long as you ask for the "plates and matrix" when ordering.

If you want more info about this group, check out this page:
http://polyclay.com/ready.htm

(WARNING... having stamps made like this can get quite addicting!)

As for other uses, they can be fun to use with embossing powders (especially for Christmas--tags, cards, letterhead, ornaments, etc.), and for ATC's ("artists trading cards"), for marking calendars, and we use them a lot for polymer clay for making everything from jewelry to "covering" boxes/glass votives/etc. But many stamps could also be used with the finer-grain "air-dry" clays as well (like Creative Paperclay, bread clay, etc.).

If you want to check out some of the things that have been done with stamps and polymer clay, including cool ways of "highlighting" and "antiquing" them after hardening, check out these two pages at my site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/stamping.htm
http://glassattic.com/polymer/texturing.htm
(... "texture stamps" are just all-over-pattern stamps, just not usually representations of objects)

P.S. You might also be able to trade stamps with other people at some point, or share with them at gatherings to make cards, etc.

HTH,

Diane B.

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