Truly Affordable

By following a few simple guidelines you can save money by creating rubber stamp artwork that a stamp manufacturer can download without any design input; stamp manufacturers love it when artwork arrives that is ‘ready’ for production.

You may currently be paying $12.00 for an unmounted, mass produced stamp in the shops, buying the same size stamp direct from a rubber stamp manufacturer will be about $9.00 and be custom made for you!

The following design guidelines assume that you have scanned a drawing into your computer or have located a piece of artwork and imported the image.

Design Guidelines

The easiest stamp to make from a manufacturing point of view is one where the artwork has a line thickness that does not fall below the minimum required. The minimum line thickness that is recommended is 0.2mm (0.00787 inch or 0.57 point), if it does fall below this, the ‘wall strength’ of that part of the stamp is compromised and may become distorted. Having said this, you can convert an image with fine lines to one suitable for stamp making.

Computer programs work with image data in a number of different ways, for example programs like CorelDraw work with both Vector images (lines) and Bitmap images (pixels), CorelDraw is also the preferred program for making rubber stamps from images.

When scanning a drawing into your computer it will always load as a bitmap image, (a bit like a photograph in a newspaper). This can be sent directly to a stamp manufacturer as long as it is a black and white scan and the line thicknesses do not fall below the minimum. If the lines are too thin you can convert the bitmap image into vector data by applying a trace to the image. Programs that have tracing ability place a vector line around the lines or can be set to follow the lines, these lines can then have a thickness applied to make them suitable for rubber stamp making.

Complex drawing and illustrations can also be made into rubber stamps; these may not contain many lines and look more like photographs. It is best to send a few different options of these to your stamp manufacturer; one option would be to increase the brightness of the image then convert the bitmap to a simple black and white image. Here it is best to select a rubber stamp manufacturer that is familiar with these types of images, see below recommendations.

File Formats

All images that enter your computer have an extension relating to what format they are in. You may have an image from a scan, a clipart disk or downloaded from a clipart service. Some are .eps and .wmf files (Vector line format more common for logos or line drawings) and others jpeg an .gif (Bitmap pixel photos and illustrations)
Both image formats can produce excellent stamps; however simple images are always best in .eps and .wmf format to allow you to easily manipulate line thickness in the event the lines are too thin.

Online Clipart Services

There are many online clipart services that provide excellent clipart for rubber stamping; the best images are from services that are subscription based that charge a yearly or per image fee. If this does not suit and you really want to save money you should find out which service your rubber stamp manufacturer belongs to, it costs nothing to search through the clipart service that he belongs to as he will be the person downloading the images. This bit of lateral thinking and finding the right manufacturer will save you lots of money because you will never have to pay for the clipart. Clipart.com is one of the best services that some manufacturers subscribe to; I estimate that over 3 million images at Clipart.com are suitable for stamp production and they are fine with manufacturers using the images for rubber stamps.

The craft stamp industry is very large indeed and most people are still buying stamps that are mass produced because they don’t know how to get a ‘custom made’ stamp manufactured. So if you are into card making or scrapbooking and want to find that ’special stamp’ you should find yourself a manufacturer, it doesn’t matter where they are in the world as unmounted stamps are thin and lightweight and can be posted easily.
A network of stamp manufacturers that offer stamps made from online clipart services can be found online, at www.stampsearch.com.au various manufacturers will make unmounted stamps from clipart or your own artwork and send the finished stamps anywhere in the world.

Robert de Rooy is based in Australia and has been involved with the rubber stamp industry in the Pacific region for over ten years; he has provided consultation to the development of http://stampsearch.com.au and operates http://www.instastamp.com.au manufacturing stamp making equipment for people wishing to enter the rubber stamp making industry.

You are to me my lifeline
my security.
That scares me.
I never wanted to trust again that much
I got hurt too badly the last time.
I swore I'd never do it again,
never let the trust out of my hands
into someone elses.

And yet I've done it
and now I'm afraid
of what you will do with it,
of what I'll do because of it.

My first instinct is, as always,
to run, to hide,
to protect myself
from the hurt I know will come.
I don't know when or how,
just that it will, sometime.

I wanted to protect myself
to build the walls around me
but you wouldn't let me.
You smashed bricks as I put them in place
you refused to let me shut myself in,
so now what?
Where do I go now?
I feel lost,defenceless,
my hiding place is no more.

My walls are broken
and I'm now afraid to rebuild the walls
afraid I won't see you if I do
or anyone else
and I'm not sure if that's really what I want to do.

AT times it is.
I want to shut myself away and hide,
and yet I want to be out,
to mix
to talk
to share.
And I blame you
for not letting me before shaking me up
for refusing to let me retreat.

And yet I know that if I were not ready
you could not have reached me
no one could.
I would have protected myself better
I wouldn't have risked
or grown.

I want to curse you and thank you
at the same time.
I want to laugh with delight
at the things I've seen
and found with you
and cry in despair for what will not be.

You have opened me to be
what, I'm not yet sure
but I know that I am stronger
because of you
braver, because of you
more, because of you.

Fran Watson
“Expert Author”
http://www.franwatson.ca
http://www.mormunny4u.org
http://www.diet-basics.org

I planted my vegetables, for a few

years exactly where I wanted ‘em

to be planted. Said to myself: if I

had to make a living and nothing

grows, no one needs to point

fingers, or be anonymous; so,

it’s my hoe, my garden, I’ll clean

the scraps up, I’ve been at that so

long I can’t possibly wear my hands

down (so I told myself). All my life

I’ve been at it: they lay it down, I

pick it up; weedin’ with a hoe-blade

isn’t easy. You try it, see!

I loaned my land out to a retired

farmer one year, who had little land

to mention, but wanted to grow

something: better than me with a

hoe he wasmade whatever he

planted grow (I never could). He

even used his own water (he lived

across from me, in Alabama back in

‘77).

As I stoodday after daylooking

out my kitchen window, watching

him plant, and hoe, and water, and

the cucumbers grow, (God knows

what for) He said those vegetables,

cucumbers he done planted would

grow fat, and huge, and they did.

He could have shown me a few

things about planting, hoeing and

growing (back then); things I never

thought of, but I just wanted some

of those cucumbers. Funny, when

we’re young. Now looking back I

can still see that old farmer looking

over his shoulder at me: smirking.

Reflections of youth, when I lived in Alabama, back in l977-l979.
#1010 1/28/2006

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

Making your own birth announcements can be very easy and rewarding. By using vellum, you can announce the birth of your baby while also personalizing the announcements with a picture of your new bundle of joy. Here’s what you need to make your own vellum birth announcement:

* Vellum paper

* Scrapbook paper

* Double-sided tape

* Paper cutter

* Baby photo

* Computer/Printer

* Envelopes

Purchase vellum paper and scrapbooking paper at your local craft store, if you don’t already have some on hand. Vellum is a translucent paper that allows you to see what is underneath it. We will use this paper to print the actual announcement on. You can also purchase the envelopes at a craft store.

Cut a piece of scrapbook paper of your choice to the size of an envelope. Use this as a template for the vellum and your other announcements.

Print your announcement from your computer directly on to the vellum paper. In your printer settings on the computer, select “transparency” as the paper type. This is the closest paper type to the vellum paper and won’t put as much ink on the page. I printed my announcements in Microsoft Word, fitting four announcements on one page. Suggested wording:

We are happy to announce

Zachary David Paxton

February 27, 2005

7:40 a.m.

6 pounds, 14 ounces

20 inches long

The proud parents,

David and Rachel

In our case we were announcing twins! Just use a smaller font to fit both birth annoucements on one page. I also printed their photos in Microsoft Word so that I could “paste” them together and print them side-by-side.

Experiment with fonts until you find the font you like. To download free fonts, go to http://www.google.com and type in “free fonts” and you will find many free fonts to download.

Using the paper cutter, cut the vellum paper with the announcements printed on it to the size of the scrapbook paper.

Trim your photos to be smaller than the scrapbook paper. The paper should look like a mat behind the picture.

Using the double-sided tape, tape the photo to the scrapbook paper.

You will tape the piece of vellum paper on top of the scrapbook paper with the photo on it. Use two very small pieces of tape along the top edge of the scrapbook paper to tape them together. You don’t want the vellum totally taped down because you want to be able to lift the bottom edge of it to see the photo.

That’s it! Your family and friends will love your personalized birth announcements.

Photo of finished project:
http://www.crafty-moms.com/articles/051205c.shtml

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of four. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit http://www.crafty-moms.com