A word about rubber

As you probably know, Stampin’ Up! are all about providing high quality products to help you and I create gorgeous projects. Their rubber stamps in particular have won numerous awards including the Creating Keepsakes Award for Best Rubber Stamps this year for the 9th year in a row!
One thing I love about  being a demonstrator is the fact that I don’t have to buy any of my stamps myself! Stampin’ provide opportunites to all their demonstrators to earn their stamps for FREE through their generous hostess benefits, Stampin’ Start program and during special promotions such as Sale-A-Bration throughout the year.
Here’s the box of goodies that arrived on my doorstep last month full to the brim with sets that I didn’t pay a cent for!!

Now I have always enjoyed trimming and mounting my stamps on the blocks (I feel it helps me get to know my stamps better before I start creating with them lol) but, as most of you will know,  Stampin’ Up! have made it even quicker for you to start stamping with your new sets as they are moving towards all their sets being die-cut!
One question I’m hearing a lot from customers (and one I’ve certainly asked myself) is : Do we still need the Craft and Rubber Scissors?
After mounting several die-cut sets my answer is “yes”. Depending on whether you are a heavy handed stamper or someone who applies a lighter touch when inking up and stamping your image you will want to cut the rubber around your image accordingly. I have found that I like to give my die-cut stamps a light trim before mounting them so I don’t have to worry about picking up extra ink around the edges and risk getting that “halo” effect when I’m stamping my image.
The Craft and Rubber Scissors also allow you to custom mount your stamps with ease. For example you can seperate an image from a greeting for greater versatility with your stamping. Some alphabet sets e.g. the Defining Alphabet come with the upper and lower case letters together on the rubber. Your Craft and rubber scissors allow you to seperate these easily so you can moun each letter on a different face of the block:



These scissors come as part of the standard $324 Starter Kit as well as the limited edition $150 Scrapbooking Starter kit available this month.
If you have any questions about your stamps and how to put them together please feel free to ask on this post or contact me at stampin@vanessawebb.net.