Monday, May 16, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Making Rubber Stamps: Learn How To Make Your Own Art Craft Rubber Stamps For Stamping Up Paper Craft By Robert De Rooy
Making stamps at home does not mean producing amateur stamps suitable just for kids' stamping. With a little information and the right rubber stamp making supply, manufacturing rubber stamps is fun and easy!
Classifying Rubber Stamps
For starters, rubber stamps are classified into two categories: business rubber stamps and art rubber stamps or craft stamps.
Business stamps are hand stamps, self inking stamps (pre inked) or dating stamps; the text of which makes them personalized rubber stamps. When using a hand stamp you must stamp it up and down on a stamp pad to load the stamp with ink before making your impression.
Art and craft rubber stamps are a lot more interesting as graphics such as hand drawn artwork, craft clipart along with alphabets and photographs can be used. Used in creating scrapbooks and greeting cards these custom stamps can also be used with embossing powder or ink for embossed rubber stamping. If you have ever tried to locate a Chinese character rubber stamp, you will know they are hard to find, so why not make your own? Stamp art has no limits - all your stamp ideas can be realized once you start making stamps at home so start gathering your rubber stamping ideas!
You will never again need to buy from a Rubber Stamp Manufacturer!
The fantastic thing about making your own stamps is that you will save money and do away with buying stamps from a rubber stamp maker or rubber stamp company. You can get all your rubber stamp making supplies or a rubber stamp kit and make your own personalized stamps, photo stamps, signature stamps and craft stamps within the comfort of your home.
Different Methods of Rubber Stamp Manufacturing
Does it sound impossible? Well it isn't. In fact making rubber stamps can become addictive once you grasp the basics. You must have an understanding of how different methods of rubber stamp manufacturing is carried out, then you can start searching for the relevant rubber stamp supply to start creating your rubber stamping ideas!
- Hand carved - Creating a carved stamp is still practiced in some countries. A simple example of a carved hand stamp is carving on erasers but this is beyond the skill level of most of us and is very time consuming.
- Vulcanizing - You may be familiar with magenta rubber stamps that utilize self cling foam similar to EZMount for sticking to acrylic blocks. These are vulcanized rubber stamps like the ones you buy from Stampin Up. Vulcanized stamps require a matrix mold to be produced for each new design making it an expensive process for small quantities of a single design. The vulcanizing heat press is also quite an expensive stamping machine for home use.
- Laser - Sounds hi-tech and so will your bills be! You can also make your own rubber stamps using a laser engraving machine, however, expenditure is high including its maintenance and operating costs, which are much higher than the vulcanizing process. Lasers are usually used for business style stamps where a custom rubber stamp is required.
- Flash technology - This relatively new stamping technology is not too expensive but the finished stamp has only a single colour, similar to the self inking stamp. This means it's unsuitable for your creative craft stamps. Flash Stamp technology employs a technique where ink flows through a membrane after exposure to a light source. The sections of the membrane containing the artwork remain open from which the ink flows.
- Polymer stamp making - Using a liquid polymer, artwork and a UV light source polymer is the clear choice for making custom rubber stamps at home with its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. You will only need a computer, laser printer and a UV exposure unit and of course the correct polymer for stamp making.
Stamping up with Polymer Rubber
Among the various ways for manufacturing rubber stamps, the polymer stamp making technique is the winner of all available stamp making methods for rubber stamp makers at home. Manufacturing polymer stamps will allow you to get professional quality custom rubber stamps at the lowest price possible!
It might surprise you that polymer stamp making is now the most common method of manufacturing stamps commercially today. The majority of business ink stamps, self inking personalized stamps and increasingly so craft stamps are now more often polymer stamps. Polymer stamps are also known as acrylic polymer, clear stamps, clear rubber stamps and rubber plastic stamps. Interestingly, polymer stamps contain no rubber at all and are still called rubber stamps!
Stamp Making Rules
Before you launch into making your own polymer rubber stamps, you must keep in mind three important factors about polymers. Pay attention to these and you can be assured of a high quality rubber stamp.
- Platemaking Polymers - Used extensively in the printing industry not all photopolymer plates will produce rubber stamps. To make a stamping die a polymer with the durometer reading of 40 is ideal; this is the hardness scale of the cured polymer. InstaPlate is just such a kind of polymer designed to make rubber stamp dies and best suited for home use. It is available as a photopolymer gel in a sachet (commonly known as 'polymer in a bag'). With InstaPlate, you can be assured of a good quality polymer so request it when you investigate your stamp making supply.
- Polymer Solidification - Some stamp making kits employ other types of polymers that solidify under natural light or a single light bulb. This is not recommended as polymers that solidify under a specific UVA light range are always better. All professional stamp makers use polymers like InstaPlate as it allows control of the UVA light at a specific wavelength to make stamps. So invest in a quality UV exposure unit along with a commercial grade polymer such as InstaPlate to create stamps like the professionals do, this is especially important if you are interested in producing wholesale rubber stamps at home for resale.
- Strength of your Rubber Stamp - We often come across polymer stamps with no structural backing allowing the stamp to naturally stick to a mounting block. While these seem great, they are susceptible to tearing, dirtying and distortion. A strong permanent backing avoids these problems and is becoming very popular now that we have products such as EZMount and InstaGrip. InstaGrip is a new method of affixing rubber stamps to acrylic blocks and is a repositionable mounting system designed for mounting stamps onto acrylic. InstaGrip is basically a clear thin silicone repositional mat that sticks both to the stamp backing and the acrylic block. Since it's transparent, it will allow you to see through the stamp and the block to place your impression, making your stamping process easier than ever before.
The Light Source
You don't need to spend a fortune on a light source for making stamps at home. Commercial stamp machines have built in timers that control the exposure of the polymer and are quite expensive. A better alternative for home stamp making is a smaller craft stamp maker that utilizes an external portable countdown timer. The UVA light output from one of these units will produce the same quality stamp as the larger commercial stamp making systems.
Robert de Rooy has been involved with the stamp making industry for over 12 years and provides technical assistance to stamp makers. He operates two websites about stamp making, one for craft stamp making at home http://www.makingstamps.com.au and another for commercial stamp making http://www.instastamp.com.au
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robert_De_Rooy
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Online Biz - Why 97% Fail By Joseph Albert Stewart
Getting into internet business is very easy to do. Setting up sites, sending out emails, even writing content and making videos. Most of the difficult "techy" stuff can be done for you. All you have to do is concentrate on marketing your web business.
In the last 2 years the internet has opened up to everyone because it is now so much easier to use. This is why so many are now trying online biz opportunities. But there is one problem. Only 3% of these people will actually make any money.
Why do so many fail at creating a successful internet business?
The reason they fail is because they don't give it enough time. Most are seduced by all of the marketing hype and suddenly believe that they'll be able to make thousands in just a few months. The reality is, they will pour time and money in for about a month, then give up because nothing seems to happen.
What you need to understand, is that this happens to everyone. The internet is a very big place and it takes time to pick up on all the content you create. The ones who make it into the top 3% are the people who can persevere.
I start my online marketing campaign (videos, articles, social media) by taking massive action. I will try and create a hundred articles and videos and add at least 5,000 friends on each of my social media accounts. This is a lot of work, and will take anything from 1 - 3 months. After this I can cut back on the workload a little.
I won't see any effect from this work until I'm 3 - 6 months down the line. But once the traffic starts to roll, it will snowball, provided you have carried on with marketing your online biz.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give is: don't quit your day job. Having a steady income takes any desperation out of your work. You don't "need" to make a sale.
Remember, setting up an online biz is easy, creating a successful web business is far harder.
Find out more about online biz and see how this "Out of Work" actress banked $23,560 in pure profits on the Internet - (In a Single-MONTH)
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joseph_Albert_Stewart
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Stamp Collection By Joseph Then
Stamp collectors all over the world takes pride in their stamp collection. They take good care of their collection and make sure that they know at least a little about where the stamp is from and can tell people about the fine print or minute in the stamp.A stamp collection is mandatory if you are a serious stamp collector. It shows how much you have collected and how much you know about the stamps you have collected. Some stamp collectors classify their collection into certain categories. As a collecter you should have some basic knowledge about what you are collecting. It's better than not knowing it and get embarassed in the outings.
They are:
1) Definitive stamps
These stamps are the most common type of stamps that people collect. These stamps are generally printed daily and can be found almost anywhere.
2) Pictorial stamps
These stamps are usually printed with the lifestyle of the country as well as the country's scenery. These stamps are sometimes printed with the country's famous monument.
3) Commemorative
These stamps are printed on special occasions to commemorate events. These stamps are usually sold for a limited period of time and are mostly available at stamp dealers. They have pretty good value.
4) Revenue stamps
These stamps are usually used in government documents and can be hard to get.
Generally, the most common type of stamps that stamp collectors have in their collection is definitive stamps. They are printed almost daily and are easy to find. However if these stamps are not printed daily and have stopped production they are considered rare. However, this depends on the details they have on the stamp and it also depends on the Philatelic investment.
It is important that stamp collectors keep their stamp collection in safe place. If their collection gets wet, the stamps in it which may be valuable and cost a large amount of money will get destroyed and will no longer be valuable.
Therefore, if you value your stamp collection, do keep them in a safe place. I would advice you to keep your collection in polythene plastics as they are waterproof. You would be taking a huge risk if you leave you stamp collection lying around everywhere. The stamps in your collection are very valuable and some may even have a special place in your heart. Do remember to take good care of them. Stamp collecting is a great hobby. You and your kids can take up this hobby and gain the educational value of stamp collecting. Find out more about stamps collecting by visiting this website now! ==> http://www.stampcollectinghobby.net  |
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