Think back to your childhood - did you ever cut patterns out of potatoes, paint them and then use them to print? - well rubber stamps for card making are the adult version of this!

There is a vast array of rubber stamps available from retailers. You can buy rubber stamps which are just words or message stamps, whilst others are outline stamps, and others are solid images.

Think of a subject and you will find an appropriate rubber stamp out there somewhere. Many manufacturers  have a distinct style and their rubber stamps are immediately recognisable, no matter what the subject is.

Some card makers are nervous of trying rubber stamping, thinking that it is too difficult, however this is a misconception. Rubber Stamping is a technique which can be easily mastered it just sometimes needs a bit of patient and practise to do so.

You can buy different types of rubber stamps:

• Traditional Rubber Stamps: These are wood mounted. The rubber impression sits on a block of wood which has finger grooves down the sides of the wood. The top of the wood normally has an impression of the design on the top and some manufacturers colour these to give you a suggestion of how the finished work can look.  These stamps tend to be the most expensive but they are also considered to be the most durable. A down side to them though is that they can take up a lot of storage space.

• Unmounted Rubber Stamps: These are sheets of rubber, normally with a set of stamps on them. You have to cut out the individual stamps out and then because they are unmounted they will need a special foam backing added to make them adhere to an acyclic block, as and when you need to use them.

• Clear Stamps: Whilst these are normally made from polymer they still come under the generic category of rubber stamps. They are normally sold in themed sets. The stamps sit on a sheet of acrylic plastic and you carefully peel them off when you want to use them and put them onto an acrylic block for stamping. One down side of these types of stamps is that they can tear.

• Foam Mounted Stamps: Again these come under the generic term of rubber stamps. As the name suggests they are made from solid foam, however they are generally not as good a quality as the other types of stamps.

Card Making has become such a popular hobby that there is now even an annual World Card Making Day! When you take up card making there are many techniques for you to learn but rubber stamping is the one which can give you the greatest diversity in your projects.

When you are just starting our card making, or if money is tight, consider carefully which rubber stamps to buy. Try to buy a stamp which you will be able to make use of on a number of different cards. For example there are lots of floral rubber stamps around - some of these would be suitable for Birthdays, Mother's Day, Get Well Cards, or Sympathy Cards, to name just a few occasions. The meaning and feel of the card can be changed by obviously changing the sentiment ( be it a rubber stamped sentiment or a peel off sticker) and by your choice of background paper.

One of the most popular times for rubber stamping is Christmas time. There are so many Christmas stamps to choose from, and every year new designs come out, from traditional to modern. Again if you are just starting out choose a Christmas design you will be happy working with and use this to produce all your Christmas Cards.
If you are producing a large number of cards with the same design, either for Christmas, another occasion, or for cards to sell, try to batch stamp the design in one good. This will speed up your work enormously.

Most stampers use ink pads on their rubber stamps. There is a wide variety of inks on the market and you should choose the correct ink for the job you want it do, taking into account the medium you are going to be working on and whether or not you intend to colour, or with what you intend to colour your stamped image.

Many stampers always work in black ink but try to experiment. Look at the pattern on the stamp and see whether a different coloured ink would work better than black.

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