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Stamps a hot trend in crafts

Several businesses have popped up in the region to help consumers make greeting cards and crafts with stamps that feature animals, flowers and other objects.

By BETH N. GRAY
Published August 1, 2006

SPRING HILL - Paper crafts have grown up.

Little rubber stamps with which kids transferred cartoon characters onto tablet paper have evolved into elaborate art stamps that adults use to create greeting cards and more on sophisticated vellums, parchments, Japanese papers and other base materials.

Stamp subjects range from animals to Florida flora and butterflies, Christmas ornaments and other holiday motifs, furniture, miniature buildings, landscapes, nautical and military subjects, and script.

"In cards, it's stamping that is real popular," says Sherry Smiley, owner of The Paper Playhouse, 5144 Commercial Way.

"You can do so much with a stamp because it lends itself to so many other crafts: paper, glass, plastic, and you can get a three-dimensional image into clay."

Smiley's business is one of several that have popped up around Hernando County.

"Everybody wants to make their homemade cards," said Susan Meendino, owner of the Stamping Studio, 10521 Spring Hill Drive. "You can go crazy with them, with glitter, ribbons, pop-ups. There are so many things to make them very personal. They beat Hallmark hands down."

Meendino says no talent is necessary to pursue stamping. Smiley agrees.

"You don't have to be a true artist," Smiley said. "You take the things that are already there, and it's the color sense and mix-and-match to get different textures and surfaces."

Carolyn Osborn of Brooksville has them all. She was one of Smiley's first students when she opened in a smaller shop some six years ago. Osborn visits the playhouse every Wednesday.

"I can spread out," she said, gesturing to a long work table holding paper, scissors, knives, glue and myriad adornments.

"Sometimes we cast our ideas about. And it's a day out," added the 73-year-old former oil painting teacher.

Osborn was cutting slides into note paper to insert wooden circles imprinted with ducks - from a stamp - and painting them. The greeting on her card urged: "Have a ducky day."

It was to be a template for a class she will teach to some 25 members of the Florida Stampers Club in September.

Osborn has created cards that include iris folding, layer upon layer of minute folds to resemble tightly packed flower petals. She has applied decorative napkins and tissue paper with iron-on wax for a glossy effect.

Transferring her longtime love of embroidery, Osborn has even embroidered cards. It requires punching needle holes in the paper first, using a design from a stamp, then weaving the finest of threads through the holes. Particularly spectacular is a golden swan.

The longtime crafter doesn't rely on standard card papers. She uses designer scissors to add decorative edging. She even made a triangular card and an envelope of the same shape.

Osborn says she has "boxes and boxes" of cards at home. She makes several of each design and always saves one so she can re-create more at a later time. On Wednesday, she asked playhouse staffer Angie Laviola if she had another empty box.

Osborn admits of stamping: "I'm hooked."

Laviola, 20, who helps out as a craft coach, said, "She's one of our best customers."

Smiley knows where Osborn is coming from.

"I got addicted to scrapbooking eight years ago. It's very addicting," Smiley said.

That led to stamping, as stamps can decorate scrapbook pages.

In fact, Smiley said, "right now minialbums and scrapbooking are really hot."

Of course, Osborn has in her collection a minicookbook. The pages are of white bakery shop paper bags. She got the idea at the playhouse.

"You learn so many things here, so many different methods and techniques, and something new is coming out all the time," she said

Meendino, of the Stamping Place, stocks some scrapbooking supplies and says she's been getting requests for more.

Both studios offer classes with qualified instructors and a one-day-a-week open workshop when crafters can pursue any pursuit.

They might include ceramics painting, quilling, painting on wood or fabric, or applying decals to mugs at the playhouse.

At the Stamping Studio, they include plastic pin shrinking and altered arts, the latter being where "you take something and make it into something else," like turning a domino into a key chain, Meendino explained.

Both owners have artful backgrounds. Meendino, 44, is a certified one-stroke painting instructor.

"I just crafted all my life," she added.

Smiley, 45, attended the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Tampa. She is a lifelong seamstress.

At another business that offers music and play groups and parties, Brenda Parish, owner of Mr. Armadillo's Backyard, 17049 Spring Hill Drive, has sought to include craft classes as a way to foster an interest in lifelong learning among children. But she has encountered a bit of resistance.

Most of the children who come to Mr. Armadillo's are ages 1 through 6 and could do simple crafts, she said. "So many older kids come with their baby siblings. So that's why I've always wanted to do things like some of the foam crafts, glue dots."

But parents, who attend with their offspring, "are kind of timid when you say scissors, or the kids will make too much of a mess to clean up," Parish said.

She is hoping to convince them otherwise.

Beth Gray may be contacted at graybethn@earthlink.com.

[Last modified July 31, 2006, 21:31:45]