Guest Author - Carol Taller

Themes are a trendy item. They come and go with the times.

This year’s biggest theme is green. The color of the year is green. Saving energy green. Eco green. Flowers, nature, and earth green. Environmentalism, vegetarianism, and recycling is in. Rubber stamping mirrors this trend, and offers earthy colors and wonderful stamps to join in the earthly celebration

Here are some of my favorite green offerings:

Peace Project: http://www.peaceproject.com/stationary/stamps.htm

Peace Project has rubber stamps that say “Peace”, but they also have “Save The Rainforest”, and “Plant a Tree”, “Walk in Balance of Mother Earth”, and other earth friendly rubber stamps. Stamps are made of red rubber and mounted on a red cushion with a wood mounting handle. The price per stamp is reduced with a higher quantity purchase.

Recycling Project: http://www.recyclingproject.co/restamp.htm

Recycling Project has stamps that say “Once Is Not Enough… Recycle”, “Think Globally, Act Locally”, “Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, Restore”, and “Teach respect for the Earth and all living creatures”. Stamps and website appear similar to Peace Project. The price of the stamp ranges from $7 for one stamp, to $4 per stamp if you purchase over 50 stamps. Consider they only offer seven different stamps I’m guessing you would purchase that volume for a fundraiser more than for personal use

SAVE THE EARTH GALLERY in the words of Albert Einstein, JFK, Edward Abbey & John Muir: http://www.rubberpoet.com/Rm40Earth.html

This interesting site has some wonderful rubber stamp sayings. “Contempt for animal life leads to contempt for human life” and “Long live the weeds and the wilderness”, both by Edwards Abbey, “Peace is the only battle worth waging” by Albert Camus, and “A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular” by Adlai Stevenson.

Stamps are rubber dies on black foam cushion, mounted on wooden handles with black ink indexing. All stamps are available unmounted without cushion for 1/2 price.

Environmental Stamps and Shirts: http://www.mpenterprises.com/cgi-bin/mpenterprises/store02/perlshop.cgi

Environmental Stamps include “If you love animals why eat them”, “Are you taking your planet for granted”, and “Only elephants should wear ivory” and “Go vegetarian”.

What I enjoyed about these sites is that they are not rubber stamping sites. While I love rubber stamping site passionately, it is nice to see other things. It’s nice to see stamping for political reasons, or to raise public consciousness. It is even nicer to incorporate the two. Imagine doing a wonderful collage project and voicing the sentiment of Albert Einstein with a stamping quoting “It has become obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” The art world and the political world can rest a little easier with these stamps…