Serendipity: RubberStampMadness magazine

Two weeks ago I was in Michael's Craft Shop with a 40% off one item coupon in hand. I saw a brand new display of make your own rubber stamp kits. I bought one small kit (original price $11.50). I made one stamp that night (fun and easy). I made one stamp the next day (again fun and easy).

My in-laws gave me a 40% coupon yesterday and we were driving right by the store so in I went. Found out they discontinued the full line of that product, which seems very odd to me as it was a new line, but, whatever.

I then used the coupon to buy the latest issue of RubberStampMadness magazine. This is the second one I have ever purchased. Read it before bed last night (it makes light and fun reading as it has a humorous tone).

Today we were far away from home and to be gone all day. I read RSM while a passenger in the car.

Then my 'friend' visited me which was a total surprise. To make a long story short we ended up driving all over back roads then up and down I-95 jumping off exits to try and find a grocery store or Wal Mart or a drug store or someplace to buy the necessary supplies. (We were headed still an hour away to go on a long hike, then had over 2 hour drive home again.)

On one back road we saw a huge tag sale and I asked to stop and I'd ask directions. (In Connecticut you have a hard time finding anyone outside their house to stop and ask directions of.) Well while there I had to take a quick look and guess what, a whole table of used rubber stamps was there. I passed them up as they were too pricey when compared to new unmounted stamps and also to used stamps on eBay. However I did pick up on RSM from 1995 for 50 cents and 2 RSM issues from 2002 for 75 cents each. I also found a new in sealed container rubber mallet for crafting (perfect for using to make metal crafts a la "Metal Craft Discovery Workshop" book by the Opie's, for $2 (I have seen them as high as $15 in Home Depot and resisted getting it for that price).

Yippee!!

So then the more hours in the car were spent reading old issues of RSM.

I would like to share that in the past I didn't see this side of stamping and have a new appreciation for stamping. I also realized that the detailed landscapes and other original compositions that people make are more like collage but instead of cutting out images from some paper they press the images onto paper with the stamp. So really that kind of rubber stamping is very close to collage. I had read in one of the issues that someone was saying collage is the fad of the day and some snub their noses at rubber stamping, but that person actually did artwork that looked like collage to me. I think collecting images from different companies and putting them together in new ways to make a cohesive scene or even a whimsical larger image is an art form in and of itself. I don't think I'd be too good at that but I find regular collage easy.

Okay off to bed, just had to share that!

(I saw some new to me techniques I want to try on ATC sized canvases in the pages of RSM. I hope I have time to do some art making tomorrow!)