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Friday, April 23, 2010

04/23 Sara's Carved Stamp tutorial

15 minute “Carve Your Own” Stamp Tutorial

Materials needed:

X-acto knife
Eraser or carving block cut to size (I prefer Staedtler)
Pencil
Several carving tools of various gauges
Paper
Design of your choice

Begin with a design (simple is best!), letter, or even a word. I found my letters in the clip art on Word.

I decided to go with the letter “G” as my soon-to-be born new baby boy will be named “Garrett”. I am thinking of using it on our baby announcements. How cute would that be?!



Trace your design using a thick pencil (pencils meant for sketching are best). Use the old window trick if you need to!
 
Flip your traced design over and rub it onto the eraser using a fingernail.

Cut away the corners so you have less “negative” space to deal with! This will make the stamped design “cleaner”. Feel free to leave the corners if you want.
Using a small gauge carving tool, carve around the outline of your design. Be sure not to nick the “positive” space of the design!

Next, carve away the remainder of the “negative” space. This will leave your design as the raised portion of the stamp, thus ensuring only your design will take ink.
Test your stamp and carve away any bits of eraser that have left marks. Continue testing until you are satisfied! Some people like a few marks to remain as it creates a more “homemade” look. I like to clean mine up as best I can!
See? How easy was that?!

Use them as gifts (new baby’s name or initials), as the perfect touch on baby announcements, or simply create them for your children to use!

If you have questions, please leave them in the comments section or e-mail us! I would be more than happy to answer them.

Sara

4 comments:

Dani said...

Great idea, Sara!

Unknown said...

Great tutorial Sara! I will need to try that!

Jenny said...

wow, that's fantastic, Sara!!!!

Susan said...

Very Cool Sara..Thank you for sharing!