Dee Gruenig, owner of Posh Impressions, discovered the art of rubber stamping as she searched for a way to simplify the process of watercolor painting. Gruenig joins host Carol Duvall in studio to share how she went from art student to stamp enthusiast.
After graduating from art school at Stanford University, Gruenig began sketching and painting watercolor scenes of friends' houses. Soon, she began attending art fairs and found an interest in silk screen printing. "But I was destined to rubber stamp," she says. "I saw my first rubber stamp and fell head-over-heels." Gruenig went on a quest to find solid rubber stamps that would serve as palates for her watercolor blending. After no luck, she decided to design her own stamps.
Once she designed her first solid rubber stamps, Gruenig successfully found a manufacturer. "And so my stamps were out there," she says. "My passion was to show the world how colors went on the back of a stamp." Dubbing rubber- stamping "art without anxiety," Gruenig began teaching how to apply several colors to the back of one stamp for a realistic and dimensional look.
After launching her new stamps, Gruenig soon began creating a variety of stamp accessories, including stamp markers and stamp holders. The accessories sold very well, and Gruenig's stamping business began to flourish. She quickly began designing stamps for all sorts of arenas, including South Africa culture and even the United States Army, who sent Gruenig to Korea to teach stamping classes to military personnel so that they could decorate letters to loved ones. Some of those stamps included images of hummers, helicopters, I.D. tags and even dirty laundry. Gruenig's husband soon convinced her that her traveling was becoming too frequent, so she wrote a book and later developed a video to teach stamping methods.
Although Gruenig has her share of natural talent, she accredits most of her stamping business's success to her love for stamping. "All I can say is find something you love to do and you'll never work another day in your life," she says. "No business plan, just a passion."
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