So now I am going to show you something that is new which is stamping on a greeting card using water color inks. If you have never done this before, I think you are going to be really happy with the results.

Our first step is going to be cutting down our cards. We are going to cut it down to 8.5’x5.5’. We are going to fold it over just to line up your corners and then you use your bone folder to make a nice, crisp crease. What we are going to do is to take our bottle that has the water color paint in it with a spray and we are going to hold that at a good distance and we are going to spray onto our page. You will notice that the paper does start to crawl a little, so you might want to keep an eye on that and then take your stamp and we are going to measure the size of stamp pad we are using. This one is about 1.25’x3.75’. I am going to cut a piece out of my white card’s stuff that is 1.5’x4’ and that is where we are going to be stamping on to. So turn your stamp over and wait for the thick water color pigment that you have chosen. Just open them up and because there is a sponge-tipped applicator, they are really easy to apply onto stamp. You just to dub it like that and then that will be the color for your flower.

Now what we are going to do is we are going to stamp. When you are stamping, you just want to press down your image and apply even pressure. You do not want to rock your stamp back and forth or side to side because that will give you a really shaky image. So we have got to head in with stamp, our flower and you will notice that as it dries, the water color has a bit of a metallic pigment into it. Just want to make sure this is dry. It does dry fairly quickly because it is water-based. We are just going to turn it over, apply adhesive and stick it on to the front of your card.

Now it is different this time because we used the dark color card stuff so in order to be able to write in it, you are actually going to have to use some white card stock, cut it down to 4’x5.25’. You could even use just regular bond paper if you want to save on your card stock. You are just going to glue that into the inside and that is finished.

Now that you know how to use your rubber stamps, it is really important to know how to take care of them. When you are working with a wood mounting rubber stamp like this, you never want to run it under water to wash off you ink or your paint because that will cause the win to swell and the rubber to lift off the blocks. So the best way to do it is to get some products that are made especially for cleaning stamps like a solution and a stamp scrubber. The first thing that you would want to do is spray your stamp scrubber with the cleaning solution then just wipe it off and then wipe it on the dry side and that is the proper way to take care of your rubber stamps.