Discover rubber stamping, a richly rewarding technique that lends itself well to many other crafts -- including card making, scrapbooking, altered books, journal making, altered art, Polymer clay projects and many more.

Rubber stampers ply their craft with rubber stamps, a variety of stamping inks and powders and paper or another surface to stamp on. Many stampers use an array of coloring tools (pens, pencils, water colors, pastels, inks, etc. ) to color the stamped image.

Recently, acrylic stamps have emerged as a popular alternative to rubber stamps. Acrylics are similar to rubber stamps but because they are clear and transparent, the stamper can see exactly where the stamp image will be positioned.

In the birthday card to the right, the image is created with two rubber stamps, heat embossed with gold embossing powder, and colored with Twinkling H2Os (a type of water color paint that twinkles or sparkles when dry). The stamped images have been matted and attached to a blue card made from card stock.

Stamping is creative, fun, sometimes challenging and always rewarding.

The video below demonstrates basic rubber stamping. It also demonstrates using a technique called "masking" and shows how to lightly tint the stamped image using Distress Inks and Prismacolor pencils.

Heat embossing is used with rubber stamping to create a raised, embossed effect. Essentially, it involves first stamping an image, sprinkling the stamped image with embossing powder and then applying heat to the embossing powder until it melts. Embossing powder is a compound sold in many craft stores and online. It is available in many colors including clear.

Heat embossing is easy to learn, fun and creates an eye catching effect.

This video demonstrates two ways to do heat embossing. The demo uses a watermark ink such as Versamark, a pigment stamping ink, embossing powder, a rubber stamp and a heat embossing tool.

This video shows how to use the rubber stamped image created above to design a greeting card. Trim the card with colored card stock, papers and ribbon.