First gift cards with stamping

We just went to a stamping party - first ever, for one of these types of get-togethers. A group of people invited together, most meeting each other for the first time, to learn some of the possibilities of rubber stamping. Of course this technique has lived in the mundane world of commerce for ever. Familiar bold gothic words in red with messages like cancelled, past due and top secret. Their message projecting an urgent call to action.

If you’ve visited an art store you know there is a shelf of these little pink gems, but now they are mostly images with a different meaning. That is what this party was all about. Our host was a perfect pilot into this world, a fun teacher with a huge collection of samples to give us the possibilities for our own creations. After a few simple demonstrations she has us making our own greeting cards. The tools are much more refined than I had imagined, which proved a very important point: If you are organized you can be so much more productive. In no time each of us had made a couple of professional looking cards. And it was very easy, with the tools at hand for scoring, embossing and coloring.

We learned that stamping has a lot to offer. It is probably the most overlooked art technique, perhaps because it is so simple to use. As Tami showed us, it’s how you use it that makes it a versatile art tool. Try for yourself the simple technique of hand painting a stamp with water based markers. See what you think of your multicolored image. Another thing to try is stamping with the usual oil-based ink pad but then coloring in the negative areas with water colors. It looks like there are a lot of possibilities for exploration, and for those that don’t feel comfortable drawing stamping can be a very creative tool. I’m ready to try out a couple of gift wrapping ideas.