When I first heard about this product, the new Cut 'n Dry Rubber Stamp Pads put out by Ranger Industries, I though it sounded interesting. Now that I've played with them, I can't imagine living without them.

There are two types of the Cut 'n Dry Rubber Stamp Pads - the foam pad and the felt pad. They come in an 8.5x11 inch sheet and have a gray foam backing on them. Ranger's suggested retail price is $4.99 for each 8.5x11 inch sheet.

So now you have a description of them and I bet you are wondering just what someone would do with such a product. I can honestly tell you that the possibilities are ENDLESS.

You know how you always buy an inkpad and usually the reinkers to go with them. Within the last year, stamp artists have begun to see the value of the reinker alone. Well, let's say you purchase a bunch of reinkers but not all the pads. For some reason, you decide you want to stamp with a specific color of reinker that you don't have the pad for. Yes, you could just go buy the pad. However, if you have the Cut 'n Dry pads, all you need to do is ink up a little piece of the pad with your reinker - wallah you got yourself a pad.

Since the pads come in a large piece, you can cut them to virtually any size or shape you want. I cut several small squares to use as my misc inkpads. The beauty of this is that when you finish with the Cut 'n Dry pad, you can simply wash it out and reuse it with a different color of ink or paint.

Another interesting tip is that you can take any stamp you have, ink it up with a semi permanent/permanent inkpad (like ranger 213 or ranger archival) and stamp it on the top of the Cut 'n Dry pad, let it dry. Now, take your various colors of reinkers and "color over" the image you stamped. You now have a custom inked pad for that specific stamp. No more coloring your stamp with markers, then huffing to rewet before you stamp. I tried this myself, using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink to stamp the image on the pad, and then used various colors of dye reinkers to color the pad. The stamp inked up beautifully and stamped perfectly using my "custom colored" Cut 'n Dry pad for inking the stamp. It works great using either the foam or felt Cut n' Dry pad.

We have all used multi colored rainbow pads. Well, as I did say, we all seem to have a very nice collection of reinkers. You can make your own rainbow pad with the Cut n' Dry pads using any color, type or brand of reinker or paints. You can use vertical stripes of color on the Cut 'n Dry pad, just like the rainbow pads you buy. Or, you can use horizontal stripes, squiggles, squares of color, circles of color, or just about any way you wish to add color with the reinkers to the pads. One pretty cool technique described by Ranger is to create what they call "Puddle Pads". Using as many, or few, colors of reinkers as you like, dabble the ink on the pad in puddles to create a wildly colorful kinda scary looking inkpad which truly stamps VERY beautifully. Bold stamps, fine line stamps...doesn't matter because the inked Cut 'n Dry pads ink up just about any stamp perfectly. All done with your Cut 'n Dry pad? Wash it out and save it for another day. Those pads do hold a lot of ink or paint, so rather than simply washing it out when you are done, why not use that inked Cut 'n Dry pad a sponge and make some backgrounds to use up the ink and then wash it out? I love the way it worked for me. How COOL is that?

We all know you can use those pigment and dye reinkers now to ink up your Cut 'n Dry pads. But you know what? I've got a TON of paints in my art room. I tried inking up both the felt and foam Cut 'n Dry pads with my paints to use inkpads. I found that when using paints, the foam Cut 'n Dry pad worked better for them than the felt pad did. I used several colors (alone and in puddle pads) of my Ready Tex paints to ink up the foam pads and stamped like a pro with them. AMAZING. And you know, all those beautiful pearlescent or metallic colors of paints? My GOSH, they stamp beautifully when you use those foam Cut 'n Dry pads with them to create a custom stamp pad. I about DIED when I saw how beautifully my metallic and pearlescent colors of paints stamped on matte, glossy and vellum cardstocks of all colors. I mean...the paint itself is fairly quick drying after you stamp it, it's PERMANENT when dry, it's GORGEOUS in color and it makes a phenomenal stamp pad with the Cut 'n Dry foam pads. I even did puddle pads with the paints and had GREAT success with it. It doesn't take much paint to ink up the foam Cut 'n Dry pads at all. And, I used the foam pads I made with paints as a puddle pad to also use as sponges to create some very interesting and beautiful sponge backgrounds before I washed them out. I tried a few other paints as well with the foam Cut 'n Dry pad and had great success with them.

I used the following products to "ink up" the Cut 'n Dry pads and LOVED the results:

1. Dr. Martin's Ready Tex Acrylic paints
2. Dr. Martin's Hydrous Fine Art Liquid Watercolors
3. Dr. Martin's Iridescent Calligraphy colors (beautiful pearlescent)
4. Luna Lights Inks
5. Dye reinkers
6. Pigment reinkers
7. Dr. Martin's Bombay Inks (think calligraphy inks)
8. Posh Inkabilties inks

One important note here is that when you use paints or the Posh Inkabilties inks, do not let the Cut 'n Dry pad dry out. Wash it out before the paint/ink dries so you can reuse the pad.

I found an exquisite use for the felt Cut 'n Dry pad too. Use bleach to "ink up" the felt pad and them stamp with the bleach. I use bold and finely detailed stamps with equal success. The bleach washes out with plain water when you are done and the pad is ready for reuse at a later time. AMAZING !!!!

I love the versatility of this product. No more scrounging around for those wedge make up sponges to use as "make do pads". And you can easily clean them with water and dish soap. (sometimes just plain water works great!) This product has added a great amount of versatility to my large collection of paints and reinkers which I can now easily use as inks for inkpads and retain all the wonderful properties of the paints when they are used to stamp with. I have now begun to look at many of my paints in a totally new light.