RUBBER STAMPS

R U B B E R   S T A M P S   by Nancy Diodati

I make rubber stamps.  It is a very old craft that requires ancient equipment.  I compare it to baking cookies because the rubber is pressed into a mold.  Making the mold requires a great deal of time, effort, imagination and money.  I do not take it lightly. It requires manufacturing an expensive metal plates with an engraved image first.

I have been making rubber stamps for over 20 years.  I started making them before anyone used anything except the,  "For deposit only" or return address stamps.  In the early days, I sold word stamps to banks, printshops and mostly businesses.  In the back of my mind I always kept a file of art images that I would "someday" make.  Once scrapbooking took off as a cultural phenomena, that was the right time to begin my creations.  But alas, I've gone too far.  Let's start at the beginning...

I first moved to New Mexico in 1986.  A little old man in Bernalillo was retiring and wanted to sell his rubber stamp business.  My husband coaxed me into "just looking."  The businessman was too old to see good anymore and I found myself making corrections to his stamps.  He told me, "If you can figure this out that fast you definately need to buy this business."  I gave him the money he was asking and we agreed to move this massive equipment that required a forklife and a semi. The equipment was from the 1800's. It didn't look like much and definately nothing someone should buy.



Once I got everything set up and learned what I was doing, I began soliciting businesses.  Once I had a few regular accounts that bought word stamps I started experimenting with art stamps.  It was a whole different process and required machines I did not have. I put it on the back burned for a while.  I tried to generate a market for art stamps before the time was right.

It's been some years, but now I have produced about 1000 images that I sell all over the world. Some are royalty free images and some are my own hand drawings. One of the first sets I made had a magic theme featuring a toad wizard.

I also created my own line of Ink Pads.  http://www.acesoverjacks.com/ABRApage39.html



In my next blogspot, I will expain all the wonderful things customers make with my rubber stamps. 

For now I'll show you a few more images. 

 

If you are even more curious, you can see my entire line of stamps in my webstore.

Abracadabra Stamp Makers