I have nothing to say myself, but loved this article that a fellow stamper sent me. It was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

It may already be happening to your wife. Or your mother. Or your daughter.

Does she beat you to the mailbox to hide the credit card bills and the mysterious little packages that keep arriving every week? Have you been unable to eat at the dining room table since last Thanksgiving?

These are the warning signs of rubber stamp addiction -- a spreading scourge that afflicts thousands of formerly sensible women who started with the innocent thought that they might like to try stamping their own greeting cards.

But few are prepared for the heady rush that comes from the sudden power to produce, within seconds, a detailed rendering of an elf or a birthday cake complete with candles. In susceptible individuals, the experience induces an insatiable craving for more stamps.

``You've just got to own everything,'' said Debi Boring, gleefully surveying the selection at a stamp festival in San Mateo. ``It's a sickness.''

Many women accumulate thousands of stamps -- spilling out of bins, taking over rooms, covering all available flat surfaces in the home. Victims of the syndrome display a frenzied need to stamp and be with others who share the habit.

``My husband says that he needs to come up with a 12-step program for us,'' said Boring with a laugh. ``But we don't want it.''

This formerly homely craft has burgeoned into what can only be described as a cult, with its own rituals, internal ideological conflicts, and escalating tithes on the family income. Husbands can try to fight it. But many succumb, devoting themselves to the auxiliary role of building rooms full of shallow shelves to store the stamps, and sawing tiny wooden blocks to mount them on.

``I totally took over my husband's office,'' said Boring. '`He started out sharing it with me -- now it's mine.''

Be warned: the first temptation may arrive in the innocuous guise of a pleasant middle-aged woman in a pastel sweatpant suit, sturdy shoes, and a neatly combed pageboy. She wants to take your wife to a stamp store or a little all-gals gathering similar to a Tupperware party. Tragically, the addict is often introduced to the habit by a member of her own family.

``I got three people addicted to stamping -- my sister and two friends,'' said a grinning Terry Williams, a customer at a San Francisco stamp store.

The first stage of the addiction is rationalization. Neophytes reason that they can save the family money on greeting cards, which can cost three dollars apiece or more. But through sustained contact with habitual stampers, initiates discover the artistic highs they could reach if they only bought more stamps, colored stamp pads, handmade papers, paints, glue guns, glitter, embossing powder, stampable clays, and special tools to cut and texture paper.

Hallmark stock would skyrocket if their cards sold at these prices.

Since the onset of the nationwide stamping epidemic in the early 1990s, handmade cards have evolved into elaborate three-dimensional constructions that can include bows, charms, toys, fur, feathers, rickrack, tinsel and pop-up pictures.

Novices quickly progress from '`social stamping'' to stamping alone when their buddies aren't around; luring others in with little gift baggies of free supplies; and joking about the ways they hide the expense from their husbands.

Suzy West, who runs workshops for a 150-member craft club in her Fremont garage, said a woman recently asked if she could pay half by check and half in cash.

``She called it the `he'll never know' plan,'' said West.

Not a surface in the American household has escaped a stamping attack -- lampshades, lunch bags, shower curtains, T-shirts, coat racks, and flower pots can all be adorned. Some stampers relieve the tension of paying bills by decorating the return envelopes with saucy stamped compositions.

``I always put something weird on my tax return,'' said Williams.

Cyberaddicts can hook up with other stampers on the Internet, where a quick search found more than 35,000 online sites that sell stamps.

The Martha Stewart webpage is now offering a $62 card-making kit that encourages customers to -- what else? -- carve their own stamps from a hard rubber block with special chiseling tools.

The vast majority of stampers are women, but men can fall prey to the habit. The husbands of stampers are particularly vulnerable.

``I do some,'' said Steve Milina, a tall, bearded Oakley man who accompanied his petite blond wife to the stamp festival in San Mateo. ``I like the tools,'' he added gruffly.

In the 1,700-square foot house they share with four kids, stamp projects dominate the dining room.

``That's what it's for,'' said Gail Milina. ``It's not for eating.''

Many hobbies hold a grip on spare time and the wallet, but stampers seem acutely conscious of their powerlessness. They call themselves ``stampaholics'' or `rubberheads.'' They buy from shops called Rubber Stamp Mania and Stampers Anonymous. They read the magazine Rubberstampmadness and the online Stamp Addict News.

Susan Brandt, a spokeswoman for the Hobby Industry Association, said rubber stampers spent about $450 million on stamps and related supplies in 1997. She estimated that stampers spent as much as 10 times more than oil painters on supplies.

With such passionate devotees, it is perhaps not surprising that deep cultural divisions have developed in the stamping world. Stampers can be roughly separated into two mutually antagonistic philosophical camps who favor either the ``cute'' or the ``weird.''

The Stamper's Warehouse in San Ramon is considered a bastion of the mainstream ``cute'' style, housing a large selection of angels, hearts, cats, kittens, and kids. A prime example would be their cartoon toddler with the entreaty, '`Hug, Please!''

That kind of thing makes some stampers' teeth ache. Aficionados of the ``weird'' go to Berkeley for the quarterly sale of Leavenworth Jackson, whose collection includes elegant pen-and-ink renderings of hypodermic needles, skull and crossbones, and disturbing cartoon characters, along with slogans like ``Subvert the Dominant Paradigm.''

Across the Bay in San Francisco, Catherine Tchen also banishes the dressed-up teddy bears and other ``cute'' confections from her Irving Street store, which sells fine-art-inspired lines like Stamp Francisco. Her shop, which caters to artists as well as hobbyists, is soon expanding to a nearby site triple the size.

Early stampers may have begun by trying to duplicate Hallmark cards, but card manufacturers are now mimicking the layered stamp and collage compositions popularized by Rubberstampmadness and the glossy magazine Somerset Studio.

New ideas are swiftly transmitted within the network of stampers who flock to classes, online chat rooms, conventions and even ocean cruises dedicated to the craft.

``It's the camaraderie among the women,'' said Debra Stopper, a friend of Boring and West who tried to explain the irresistible lure of stamping. ``It's something your family enjoys looking at.''

Phyllis Lunardi came to the San Mateo stamp festival with her mother-in-law, her sister-in-law, and her 9-year-old daughter Grace. Once a month, they get together to quaff pink champagne with popcorn while they work on stamp projects.

``We'll just stamp for four or five hours and talk,'' said Lunardi. ``It's like the old quilting bees.''

Grace had just spent her own money for the first time to buy two little fish stamps and other supplies. Asked her opinion of her mother's stamp buying habit, Grace summed up the situation with the penetration of a Zen master.

``She has too many,'' Grace said, then added, ``She has to buy more.''