Stamping Basics - Essential tools and products for new crafters

Stamping is a wonderful papercraft technique that is used and loved by crafters all over the world. It is the process of applying ink to a stamp, and pressing it onto paper or cardstock to transfer the design. This can include the transfer of images, text, colour or other things to help enhance your papercraft and cardmaking projects in lots of different ways.

Whilst stamping in concept is a fairly simple technique, there's lots of different stamping tools that you can use to achieve a varied set of results, and to help improve the overall outcome.

Stamping Basics: 12 Must-Have Tools for New Crafters

Stamp Sets

These are fantastic, especially if you're fairly new to stamping. They can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with a variety of designs, including images and sentiments. Consider starting with clear acrylic stamps for ease of use, and combine these with your favourite inks for beautiful results.

Stamp Ink

Different types of ink include dye-based (quick-drying, vibrant colours), pigment-based (rich, opaque colours), hybrid inks (combines qualities of both), and more! Just be aware that different inks have different outcomes, and experiment with each one until you achieve your desired outcome.

Acrylic Blocks

Clear acrylic blocks are often used to help with more intricate and accurate designs. This is because you can see straight through to your design underneath, which is essential for precise stamping.

Stamp Pads

These pads are great for blending your inks and creating precise impressions with your designs. They are small plastic or metal tins with a foam or felt pad inside that is dowsed with ink. They usually contain a fast drying ink that can be easily applied to any paper or cardstock.

Paper

You can stamp onto pretty much anything, but just make sure to allow enough time to dry fully to avoid smudging your designs. High-quality cardstock or specialty stamping paper helps to prevent bleeding and ensure crisp impressions. We would recommend something more porous which will soak up the ink much better.

Heat Embossing Tools

Heat embossing is a technique that is used to create textured, raised finishes with your stamping. You just need special heat embossing ink and some embossing powder, which will stick to the ink and dry slightly raised on your surface.

Stamp Cleaner

It's important to keep your stamps in good condition by cleaning them after each use. If you don't do this, you may notice that they pick up pieces of unwanted dirt or extra pigment that can cause your designs to become unclear and contaminated. You can do this by dabbing any excess ink onto a damp cloth after each use, and gently rubbing the surface to clean off any leftover ink, taking care not to cause any damage to the design.

Paper Trimmer

A good paper trimmer is a fantastic tool to have in your craft repertoire. You can use it for all sorts of things, but with stamping it's great for trimming down your designs to you preferred size.

CraftStash offer the best deals around on top paper trimmers and guillotines for papercrafting. We stock an extensive range of high quality tools from Fiskars, Xcut & Tonic Studios, which are all ideal for trimming paper, card & laminated paper with ease.

Embellishments

You can use things like ribbons, gems and glitter to add an extra layer of wow-factor to any design. Get hold of some good quality and trustworthy glue, and try to experiment over your designs to see what works best.

Stamp Positioner

These are some of the most useful tools that we could recommend for your stamping collection. If you don't have one of these already, we would suggest getting one - it will change the game! Use stamp positioners for aligning and repeating stamps accurately, which is extremely useful for precision work.

Stamping Platform

Another amazing tool that ensures precise alignment, consistent impressions, and ease of re-stamping. Ideal for complex designs and layering stamps, and another must-have if you don't have one already.

Storage

This one sounds so obvious, but you might need to invest in some extra storage to help keep your stamping tools and inks organized, clean and tidy. You might start to build up quite a collection, and having it all in one place makes everything much easier!

There's so much more to talk about, and we could go on forever with our list of tools, but these are our top tips and craft essentials that will help make your stamping the best it can be.

Why not take a look at our fantastic selection of Creative Stamping Magazines for some stamping inspiration: Shop here