It happens to us all at some time or other. You just catch the edge of the rubber stamp with your ink pad, it transfers to your stamped image and has the potential to spoil your card.

You can see in the stamped image below that I caught the edge of the large flower design on the left hand side, so there’s an extra little streak of ink where I don’t want it.

The card isn’t ruined, there are ways of covering up a small mistake like that (eg. stamping another design over the top in a darker ink, covering with ribbon or a punched shape etc) but if it happens more than once then it’s worth taking steps to avoid it in the future.

One solution, with clear stamps at least, is to cut away excess rubber and trim closer to the design. There are two key points to remember if you try this:

1. Do it in good light and make sure you don’t trim too close or you could cut into your design.

2. Trim any excess away at a 90° angle (i.e. straight up and down), otherwise the stamp won’t sit well on the block.

Hope this helps.

Sara xx