With just about 200 square feet of retail space, Rubber Stamp Plantation is hardly the largest Hawaii store open on this Black Friday, but it is open and it is having a sale.

The retail space is just a fraction of the company’s 2,000-square-foot space at 746 Ilaniwai St. in Kakaako, in which Debra Zeleznik makes her rubber stamps, greeting cards, stickers, decals, tropical light switch covers, ornaments, glass etching stencils and general-purpose stencils and jewelry.

She also sells gift books, "coffee table books" on numerous topics, and teas from her farm on the North Shore, which grows vetiver grass and uses the root in a variety of decaffeinated and caffeinated teas. Merchandise is 10 to 50 percent off, depending on the category.

The company is about to mark its 25th year in business, having started in 1989 creating gecko stamps for the Gecko Stores.

Zeleznik drew designs that were turned into stamps with isle motifs, and she and her then-business partner got a permanent kiosk in a shopping arcade behind the old Canlis restaurant near Hernando’s Hideaway and Hamburger Mary’s. They sold stamps and handmade jewelry and moved the business to Aloha Tower Marketplace when it opened.

Friends recommended they attend a Douglas Trade Show, where they received so many wholesale orders they gave their month’s notice to the marketplace.

Rubber Stamp Plantation turned its focus to wholesale and the craft fair circuit, selling stamps, jewelry and herbed vinegars that Zeleznik formulated using organic herbs.

The success of the stamp line was not based on scrapbooking crafters, she said. "That came in later."

Stamping is one of the oldest print methods, she noted. "People make cards, people love to stamp, they stamp on their envelopes, invoices, on their bills, checks, whatever, but they’re artists’ tools,"Zeleznik said.

She likes the fact that fellow artisans use her stamps in their own work. JoAnna Hernandez uses them as part of her jewelry designs; Lesley Ashworth, in her clothing designs. Artists who make soaps and work in clay also use her stamps in items they sell.

"As long as the image is hand-stamped and the stamp is being used as a tool, I’m OK with people prospering," she said. "You can use the stamp but not the design," although she does offer licensing of her artwork.

A line of greeting cards emerged from her classes, workshops and product demonstrations. She would take papers she had stamped, colored or otherwise decorated, cut out pieces and upcycle them "because they were too good to throw away." Cutouts and pretty scraps were applied to cards that might be further stamped and enhanced, she said.

A line of "Auntie’s Hawaiian Stickers" came about because a business contact suggested, "If you make those into stickers, I can sell them all day to Longs." These spurred crossover lines, such as decals for cars and temporary tattoos, popular with women of a certain age.

Zeleznik now has seven lines of merchandise sprung from her original rubber stamp company and offshoot ideas brought about by others’ creativity, advances in technology and customer requests.

HouseMart Ben Franklin Crafts was already buying some of her products for resale when they asked her to create a stencil for glass etching that would give crafters a choice of which part of the design would appear etched and which would remain glossy. Tropical Etch Glass Etching Stencils was the result.

Zeleznik also uses Tropical Craft Stencils in paint, for embossing or other similar projects. They are multi-use, versus the single-use glass-etching stencils.

"The body of artwork has been very market-driven," she said. "If three or four people ask for it, I know I have to start drawing or designing."

While she is not a trained artist, she believes in her design sense and has a keen feel for what will sell. "Actually drawing a design, the mechanics and technical part of drawing a design, it’s not easy for me, it’s not natural."

Still, a plumeria stamp, among her first designs so many years ago, gets shipped out regularly even now. The geckos are still popular, too, she said.

"It’s crazy. I can’t believe I’m still in business after all this time. It blows my mind."

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“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.