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My Favorite Craft Stores

Types of Stamps

There are many types of stamps available in the market for your handmade cards. Let's take a looks at some of the stamps commonly found in crafts stores,

Woodmounted stamps

Ready To Cling stamps

Clear stamps

My Personal Preference

Woodmounted Rubber Stamps

Most common is the wood mounted rubber stamps.

Wood mounted stamps are the traditional hand stamp that offers durability and protection of the carved out rubber image.

These stamps often offers very clear and detailed image. And because woodmounted

stamps are properly labelled with a colored version of the image on the top of the wood, that makes it appealing to collect, to locate and give a guide on coloring your stamped image.
Some are sold unmounted and can be easily purchased from the internet. As it is unmounted, it is lighter for shipment but you will need to get it mounted to either acrylic blocks or wood to use the stamps, if they do not have a self-adhesive back. To mount it to acrylic blocks or wood permanently may eventually be more costly.

Pros

Comes with a nice colored print of the image which makes it easy to locate and gives you an idea on how to color your stamped images.

Durable as it's wood mounted. Low chance of the rubber changing it's shape.

Neat and can be nicely laid flat in drawers for storage.

Cons

Takes up space especially when you have a big collection. Needs good storage for the woodmounted stamps.

Harder to re-stamp the image if the first time comes out unclear as the wood blocks the visibility of stamped image.

Harder for aligning if stamping with other images from other rubber stamps.

Not advisable to stack too many woodmounted stamps over each other as the weight of the wood may cause damage to the rubber, which may distort the image or cause it to be unclear.

Ready To Cling Stamps

Similar to unmounted stamps, Ready-To-Cling stamps are unmounted but the back has a reusable self-adhesive pad which allows you to conveniently fasten to acrylic block as and when you need to do stamping.

Pros

No wood, small in size and can be easily stored in CD cases.

As it is light, you may source the stamps internationally and the shipment is relatively cheaper to woodmounted stamps.

Flexibility in mixing different pieces of stamps together to create unique image and designs.

Cons

Self-adhesive tend to lose it's stickiness after prolonged use.

Harder to re-stamp the image if the first time comes out unclear as the rubber blocks the visibility of the stamped image.

Clear Stamps

Similar to Ready-To-Cling stamps, you will need to mount it to acrylic block when you need to use the stamps. Unlike the Ready-To-Cling stamps and as the name suggests, clear stamps are..."SEE THROUGH" stamps.

Pros

Small in size and can be easily stored in CD cases.

As it is light, you may source the stamps internationally and the shipment is relatively cheaper to woodmounted stamps.

Flexibility in mixing different pieces of stamps together to create unique image and designs.

As it's a see-through clear stamp, you can easily re-stamp on the image if the first stamp is unclear.

Ease of alignment of placement of different stamps to form a unique and different image.

Stamps are flexible, you can arch it slightly to make it a little different from the usual image.

You can easily wash with mild soap and water if the stamps get too dirty to restore it's self-adhesive function.

Cons

Some clear stamps (depending on brand and quality) tend to become to soft, causing the stamped imaged to smudge a little. So, have to be selective on the brands of clear stamps.

Clear rubber stamps tend to turn yellowish after some time, it doesn't affect the stamping ability, but just looks a little bit more dirty.

Back to Top.

My personal Preference

My personal preference is obviously the clear stamps which offer flexibility and ease of storage and use. Personal favourite is Hero Arts and can be purchased at this online craft store and so far, it's the cheapest, unless you are willing to go to ebay and spend time searching and bidding for good deals.

For background stamping, I prefer woodmounted stamps as it's firm, sturdy and provides a balanced stamping and normally, I will only get the large wooden background stamps.

I used to purchase Ready To Cling Stamps but I hardly use it as clear stamps works better due to its visibility to see the exactly stamping location.

Other good quality craft rubber stamps include brands like Hero Arts, Penny Black, Stampin Up and MSE, which offers woodmounted, ready-to-cling and clear rubber stamps.

Quick Reference for Basic Stamping

Basic Stamping Main Page

Types of Stamps

Types of Inkpads

Embossing

Caring for your Craft Supplies

Coloring

How to do Stamping

Move to Advanced Stamping