Art Rubber Stamps - What s the Simplest Way De-ink Them?

If you have been experimenting with stamps for awhile, you can remember when you forgot to clean a rubber stamp, the one you just inked with a dark blue ink, and began ink'n it up on a nice light colored stamp pad...It's ruined! It only takes one mistake to ink a pale stamp pad, and the only way to prevent it is to clean your stamps completely. But...what is the right way to go about stamp cleaning?

I wish there was a way to have a definitive answer to this question, these days dyes come in all types. Some enjoy acrylic paints and others simply stick with old fashioned dye based craft pads. There is no one single solution for cleaning all of your stamps since there are many different types of colorants that you are using with each stamp.

To remove light colored inks (yellow, pinks, light blues, whites, etc.) you can simply tap the art stamp on a towel, then daub the towel into the grooves and let the ink dry. If you do decide to scrub the art stamp with a commercial stamp cleaner using the scrubber on top, be sure not to scrub to hard or the felt will get into the cracks of the stamp and can make the images look fuzzy and streaked. Commercial stamp cleaners work so well because they contain additives that dissolve the toughest inks like blacks and blues. In addition to using the scrubby top of a commercial craft stamp cleaner, you can use an old white sock.

Another way to clean craft stamps, and one of the fastest, is to use alcohol free baby wipes. Alcohol free baby wipes work fantastic because they are disposable and just damp enough to clean off the ink. Some stampers like to use a paint cleaner to get the deep places of the stamp die clean. Be careful if using a brush because you don't want to splash ink all over your stamp project!Make sure the brush bristles are very flexible since you don't want to scratch your craft stamp while cleaning it.

Everyone loves rubber stamping and cleaning your art stamps shouldn't be hard work! You may find you have to use a commercial cleaner every so often if your stamps start to get sticky after using any of the above mentioned rubber stamp cleaning tips. Keeping your stamping supplies clean is a good idea and will make the stamp look much better and will avoid the embarrassment of accidentally ruining another ink pad!

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