Rubber Art Stamps - How Should You Clean Them?

Just working with rubber 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 inking it up on a nice yellow stamp pad...Ouch! It only takes a mistake to completely ruin a lightly colored ink pad, and the only way to prevent it is to clean your stamps completely. But...what ways are the best to make sure your stamps get clean?While it would be very nice to have a definitive answer to this question, these days pigments 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. The first step to cleaning any art stamp is to dab off the excess pigment on the stamp on a scrap piece of cardstock. This will keep your supplies from getting more inked up than they need to be. One of the most popular techniques to clean rubber stamps, and one of the simplest, is to use baby wipes. Alcohol free baby wipes work well because they are disposable and just damp enough to clean off the pigment. Some stampers like to use a toothbrush to get the deep groove of the stamp die clean.  Be careful if using a brush because you don't want to spray ink all over your clothes!Make sure the brush bristles are very soft since you don't want to scratch your rubber art stamp while cleaning it.Whatever method of cleaning you decide to use, make sure you don't use solvents to clean your rubber stamps since they can ruin the adhesive. Don't put your rubber stamps under water...this will cause the labels, adhesive, and rubber to come apart eventually. If you decide to use a commercial window cleaner, make sure you don't use one that contains ammonia as that can hurt the rubber.