I have just returned from a brief creative journey to Northern California at one of our favorite stamp companies...
HERO ARTS...lucky me!
I'll be sharing with you in a few demos during June some of the tips, tricks, and techniques taught to us by the fabulous Shari Carroll, a long time designer and educator for Hero Arts...featuring the new
Stamp Your Story line...stamps, stencils, daubers and ink...Mark your calenders for June 1 and June 23 and join me for some creative fun!
In the meantime, come along with me as we tour the Hero Arts facility in Richmond, California...
The building was a former cannery located near the docks in Richmond and has been beautifully renovated...spacious, light, and modern...in the reception area this gal was busy all day inputting orders into her computer...
Our tour guide was Aaron Leventhal, CEO and president of Hero Arts...he is the son of founder Jackie Leventhal...
Aaron explains that the 'dirty' part of the process, vulcanizing the rubber sheets and cutting wood for the wood mounts is done in their Oakland, California facility...this warehouse is super clean and quiet!
These shelves are full of rubber stamp sheets...
First they need to be placed on the foam cushion...a process that was innovated by Jackie Leventhal and now considered an industry standard...This gal, who has been with Hero Arts for 17 years, places the rubber sheets on the sticky foam cushion....
It is either cut by hand, or in a few cases, with a guillotine cutter for straight edge designs...
This gal, (who looks serious but gave me a huge smile after I took this picture), is cutting the rubber stamps by hand...yep, all by hand...with regular size shears...no die cuts here...each one is hand cut!
Amazing!
More cutting and trimming...Wouldn't you think they'd use detail scissors? They don't though!
Placing labels on cling stamps...
This gal is putting the trimmed stamp on a wood mount...she checks each piece of wood to make sure it passes quality control standards...
Packaging and labeling...
These shelves are full of stamps ready to be pulled for orders...
These gal prepare the pulled orders for shipping...
Order packed and ready to go!
I wonder if our order is in here somewhere!
Hope you enjoyed this tour as much as I did!
Make Someone Happy...
Sheila
