How to Rubber Stamp

First, assemble your supplies together. This includes your rubber stamps, paper, and inks. For this tutorial, I'll assume you've gone through the different options available to you and have made your choices about what kind of stamps, inks, and paper you want to use.

Before you begin stamping, wash your hands! The reason for doing this is to remove any extra oils, hand creams, or stains from your hands that could transfer to your stamped image. If you're wearing coloured nail polish, it's a good idea to remove it as well. Many projects I stamped as a novice were streaked with nail polish that had transferred off my nails onto the paper.

Open your ink pad, and holding your stamp securely in hand, "mash" it into the inked surface of the stamp pad. The most common mistake beginners make is to "rock" the stamp back and forth. This causes ink to sit on the edge of your rubber stamp, wood block, or fingers- all of which can cause unsightly ink stains or lines where you don't want it to go. Here's an example of what your paper looks like when a stamp gets rocked:

After you've sufficiently inked up your stamp, lift it straight off the pad and place it down on your paper. Again, don't rock your stamp when stamping it. Put it straight down, apply even pressure, and lift it off your paper. You should be left with a crisp, clean image.

At this point, if you're not happy with the result, there could be a couple of reasons.

First, you may have slightly moved your stamp while stamping by either sliding it a small amount, or by moving your fingers to a different location on the block. This will cause blur to occur.

If those pictures look like what might have happened to you, flip your paper over and try again...after all, paper has 2 sides!

If you've followed these directions and you're still not happy with your stamped image, you may be using a paper, ink, or stamp of inferior quality. I will be discussing the choices available in each of these products in another area of this web site.

After some trial and error, your stamped image should make you proud. Don't worry if it takes a few practice runs- you become good at something by practicing it. Just keep trying! Here's a picture of my perfectly stamped image:

I hope this information has helped to answer some of your basic rubber stamp questions and that you enjoyed this tutorial. Please visit back often as I will be writing many more articles.

All the best in your stamping endeavors!

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