Keep it Simple Stamping (K.I.S.S.)
This article is meant to help stampers who want to be more creative in their own way, without the step-by-step instuctions and how-to's, in a non-intimidating way. No illustrations accompany this article to distract you from your own ideas.
When I first got into rubber stamping, masking was considered an advanced technique. A quaint notion now-a-days as there are so many new tools, materials and fancy papers to work with. Masking - making one stamped image appear behind another - is a simple technique that contributes towards a pure stamped creation. Simple and pure are words that go together, and they do not have to mean sparse, or minimal, or boring! I like gadgets as much as the next guy, but too many options for an artist can be a horrible trap. If you limit your options, your creativity will be stimulated. Creativity is, afterall, a form of problem-solving.
A typical rubber stamped card consists of three main areas in which to make creative decisions: images, layers and color. It once was quite common to see cards with tons of different stamped images crammed into them. Then people began doing the cards with only one image, and the rest was layers, or globs of gooey stuff, or glitter, embossing, etc etc etc. To keep your stamping simple, think carefully about each of these areas as you begin your project.
Images
Most ideas start with an image, or several images together. Some ideas start with a concept, and the image or images quickly follow. A single image card is fine, but it leaves most of the creativity to the stamp designer (that's me), so for this article I'll talk about cards that use multiple images. If your idea is sparked by a particular image, start there, and use additional images sparingly. Your images do not have to match in a stylistic way; part of the fun of rubber stamping is mixing very different images together to suprising effect. Hold your main image next to other stamps in your collection and see what additional meaning you might put into your card.
Layers
Once you have chosen your starting images (you can always choose to add more) you must decide what form your creation will take. Folded cards are most common, but it could also be a postcard, an envelope, a tag, pin, small book or any number of things. All too common is the single image mounted on multiple layers. You don't have to go there: I hereby give you express permission to create a rubber stamped card on only one layer. This is my favorite form; it is simple, pure and can be used as a card (in an envelope) or a postcard. It can be placed in an album, or included in a correspondence, or stuck to your refrigerator door. Best of all, you only need plain white cardstock for paper, nothing else.
Color
Although bazillions of differing shades of rubber stamp ink are available, my own collection contains only about a dozen, and for a simple card project I will typically use about half of them, if that. The secret here is to mix colors, and there are several ways to so it. One is to ink your stamp in a light color, and then tap or roll it around on a darker color pad to had splotchy areas. Another is to use markers and color directly on the rubber. And one more is to use Ink Ticklers or some other kind of stiple brush to add color directly to the paper (like for backgrounds). Whenever I use Ink Ticklers I brush two or three or more colors right on top of each other. This adds a lot of depth and texture that you will not get with a single, pre-mixed color. Some people have a natural sense of what colors will go together, and which colors will best convey the idea at hand. If you are not one of those, experiment on scratch paper. Sloppy rough drafts on scratch are a real good way to get warmed up anyway, so throw on different colors until you see what works.
All Together
For your "final draft", cut several pieces of cardstock to size, and count on a few skrew-ups. Not every mistake you make is a deal-breaker, though. Some mistakes can be taken as creative outlets, like new problmes that need to be solved. If something does not come out the way you expected, consider the possibility that your expectation is the thing that needs adjusting.
One nice thing about layering is that it frames your artwork. For a single layer card, a simple framing idea is to use a ruler and a black marker and just draw a bold border along the edge. Another way is to make a mask that covers almost your whole card, leaving a border exposed, and then stiple or stamp that area.
