Making her mark in stamp market

Nearly 20 years ago, Spokane Valley resident Dawn Wiser started decorating envelopes with a teddy bear rubber stamp she purchased from a local crafts store. The teddy bear became her trademark on letters to friends, but it wasn’t long before one stamp wasn’t enough. Wiser kept adding to her collection at a time, and today she owns more than 500 rubber stamps.

Last month Wiser moved her massive stamp collection to 2929 N. Monroe St., where she opened a rubber stamp store, A Stamp 4 All. Inside the brightly colored store, hundreds of rubber stamps line the shelves, dozens of paper craft-making ideas are on display and Wiser’s own stamp collection is available to rent.

“I’ve known Dawn for about 11 years,” Spokane Valley resident Jodi Ward said. “She really has a great passion for collecting rubber stamps, and she’s a terrific stamper. She’s very imaginative and very creative with what she can do with rubber stamps. The cards I’ve seen her make over the years are just beautiful.”

Wiser’s friends often encouraged her to open her own rubber stamp store.

“It’s kind of a personal joke that my friends would tell me, ‘You have so many stamps, you should open your own business,’ ” Wiser said. “I let people borrow my stamps over the years but never considered owning my own business.”

When Wiser learned the former Stamp Jeannie store on North Monroe Street was closing, she started talking to her husband about opening her own store. Wiser and her husband, Perry, ended up leasing an 1,800-square-foot space on Monroe and opened both A Stamp 4 All and a cell phone business, Cricket Express. Now the two work next door to each other.

Ward is among the 20-plus customers a day who visit A Stamp 4 All to shop for rubber stamps, scrapbooking supplies or to use the die cut machine and get new ideas for rubber stamp crafts. On a recent visit, Ward went home with hot fix fibers, which are used to create an embellished decoration on a card when the fibers are heated with an iron. She also purchased a silicone noodle brush to add textures and patterns to a card, envelope or other rubber stamp craft.

“Rubber stamping is great because you get to be creative,” Ward said. “I don’t know how to draw, so once I stamp an image onto a page, I love to shade and color it.”

Outside the store, a colorful dragonfly on the window cheerfully welcomes customers. Wiser offers weekly stamp classes and continues to add to her growing inventory of rubber stamps, colored paper and scrapbooking supplies.

“Dawn is a very energetic person,” customer and South Hill resident Brooke Bont said. “She’s always coming up with new ideas and is willing to try new things. … Rubber stamping is a great idea because if you’re not very crafty, you can still put a stamp on paper, color it and make some pretty nice cards and scrapbook pages.”

Wiser often sends her customers home with a handmade card and recently colored a card with a stamped scene of a little girl on the beach surrounded by seagulls, shoes off, with fluffy, white clouds floating in the sky.

“I’m still learning,” Wiser said. “I was a great collector before starting this business, but it’s a lot of fun. I’ve always thought rubber stamping was a great outlet for creativity.”