Amos Publishing recently purchased Rubber Stamper Magazine, and includes an expanded section of rubber stamping in their existing Crafts ‘N Things Magazine. Despite the wonderful rubber stamping pages included within February’s issue, if you are looking specifically for rubber stamping techniques and ideas, Crafts ‘N Things is not best place to look. While the cover claims that there are over seventy five rubber stamping ideas within the magazine, the other half of the magazine covers knitting, crocheting, and other crafts.

Each section is color coded and easy to find. In the February 2008 issue, the letters to the editor were green, heartfelt gifts were red, hooked on crochet brown, jewelry box teal, crafting green was forest green, gourmet gifts burgundy, simply quilts purple, and cards, stamps, style was rose colored.

The projects in the magazine looked interesting, but there seemed to be a lot of cloth related projects. The 164 pages of February’s issue included a crochet water bottle cozy, knitted sachet heart, soaps, crochet scarf and hat, some jewelry making, and more. I was about to give up on rubber stamping altogether until I came to the rose colored section and began thumbing through the pages.

Much to my surprise, the stamping section was given more pages than the other sections. The samples had a variety of difficulty levels, including a specific materials list, and easy to follow directions. Several projects had suggestions how to take the project further and make it your own.

The February issue included projects other than card making. A love coupon tin looked fun and made a wonderful Valentine’s Day gift. The altered tin contained embellished messages with traditional pink and red Valentine’s Day theme on it. A beaded heart pendant also was included in the rubber stamping section. It used many of the tools and supplies from rubber stamping, but it wasn’t actually stamped with anything. A book mark and a mini album honoring dogs were also included. Other card samples were wonderfully done, with suggestions how to change and embellish them.

Two articles about creativity were in this section. One article was called The Creative spirit. It is a column introducing designers and sharing their insights how to live creatively. The February interview was with Robin Arroyave, who designed the cards on February’s cover issue. The other article is called Rubber Stamper’s Studio: Discover Your Own Recipe for Creativity written by Kerri Posson. The article lists Kerri’s ingredients that she uses to create; time, knowledge, organization, friends, and experimentation.

Book reviews and bonus projects adorned several pages, as well as references to Crafts ‘N Things web site for more online exclusive projects, and techniquejunkies.com for more advanced techniques. I was pleasantly surprised at how many pages were dedicated to rubber stamping compared to the other mediums in the magazine.

Each page was informative and well done. My concern is that the magazine is dedicated to too many other things, and at least half of the magazine covered crafts that did not interest me. If you are looking for a magazine that will inspire and teach rubber stamping, I would suggest you purchase a magazine dedicated solely to that purpose.