Rubber Stamping Happy Hour a Hit in Lemon Grove

For a group of women from all over East County, Friday-night happy hour means something more than a glass of wine and chit-chat.

It means rubber stamping.

Since June, the co-owners of at 3358 Main St. in Lemon Grove have held a happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m., where crafters can create beautiful handmade cards while sipping a glass of wine, noshing on brie and crackers and chatting with others who extol the rubber stamping hobby the shop sells.

“I’m around my grandkids all day and this is my chance to be with the girls and make a pretty card,” said Edwina Burkey of San Diego, who has been a rubber stamp enthusiast for 10 years. She’s been visiting co-owners Gretchen Scott and Beverly Fuget of Of the Heart for six years for supplies for her stamp-making endeavors.

“They’re always willing to help with ideas,” Burkey said.

Gretchen Scott said they came up with the happy hour idea after many of their working clientele complained about not being able to attend the regular Friday card-making session at 1 p.m.

“It was always the same people, so we switched it to 5 to 7 for the working gals,” Scott said. “So far it’s been real popular.”

The happy hour costs $5, and one Friday evening in November a dozen ladies gathered for wine, snacks, happy gossip and to make a Thanksgiving card emblazoned with the word “Gobble!” and a big gold turkey.

“I discovered this place just six months ago, which is a shame, because it’s been here 18 years,” said Cindy Teysko of Lemon Grove. “When I saw the cards I just had to start … and it’s a girls’ night out, too!”

Teysko, a scrapbooker for 15 years, pointed out that making a card at an Of the Heart Happy Hour is quite different than taking a two-hour rubber stamp class or a three-hour workshop.

“There’s food and wine and you don’t have to be as focused as you do in a class … it’s more fun,” she said.

Scott and Fuget have run their business successfully for almost 20 years along the trolley line, just south of the Big Lemon. Stamping classes are held on Thursday evenings, and the happy hours, which have been so popular they have had to turn away some would-be participants, are almost every Friday from 5 to 7 p.m.

Occasionally the store sponsors special events such as its annual New Year’s Day card-a-thon party, which gives the hobbyists a chance to get away from the football games, Scott said.

Of the Heart has been so successful that it has expanded into online sales throughout the world. In addition to the tiny store’s retail stock of thousands of rubber stamps, ink, paper, jewels for decorating and many more options that would delight any crafter, the co-owners stock thousands and thousands of rubber stamps in a back room for national and international online sales.

Quite the businesswomen-marketers, Scott and Fuget have been selling a monthly stamp kit for $10.95 that makes a card—no fuss, no muss—for 15 years. They attend six stamp shows in the West every year, and, of course, their card-making happy hours are a hit.

Gretchen designs all the cards, and Beverly handles the shipping end of the business.

“But my most important job,” Bev said with a smile, “is bringing the wine for happy hour.”