Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Adventures in Stamp Making

I've been carving my own stamps for a little while now to put on my tags, notes, and packaging. I've decided to start putting them on my business cards too, since I'm venturing to the buggy side of things, and not monsters so much anymore. It was quite fun coloring each card by hand with sharpies, but it does get in the way of homework time.

So here goes! A tutorial for making your very own stamps! Here is what you'll need to start: Speedycut Speedball rubber, a Speedball carving set, a pencil, and of course an ink pad and paper. You can check out the speedball website here. First step is to sketch out your design (for this I chose a beetle). Make sure to do this very lightly, you don't want to make indentations in the rubber. Then cut out the area you'll be using.
Take the tiniest carving tool, and cut out around your lines. It goes very smoothly, so make sure to keep control over your tool, it's very easy to cut too much.
Should look like this!
Then start digging out the areas around the details. You want to do this very carefully, so you don't accidentally cut off any important pieces.
You can see here the beetle is starting to take shape. I added some lines for decoration, it shall be a colorado potato beetle.
Then take a larger tool to take out the rubber around the edges. You want your design to be the only raised area.
At this point, you're almost done. Clean up some of the scraggly lines with the tool with a smoother curve, and run it under some water to wash away the little bits and pieces. Pat dry.
And there you have it! If you use the stamp and discover that your design is a bit off, you can always go back and fix it until you get it right. You can mount your stamp onto a block of wood with glue, but for now I keep mine the way they are.
Now for the fun part - making business cards and tags! Here's what you'll need:
For my business cards, I simply cut up cardboard (the type used for cereal boxes, cracker boxes, etc) into rectangles. I try to make them roughly the same size, but don't worry about being exact. I then simply write my website, and stamp away!
If you get your hands on a tag punch and a hole puncher, you can make some awesome little tags for your items. The tag punch will actually punch through the thin boxes!
And there you go, cute little tags that are uniquely yours.
Some of the other stamps I've made so far:

Hope you've enjoyed this little tutorial! I think it's a great way to give your business a more personal touch, while being eco friendly (by using recyclable materials). You can of course create any design you wish, simple or complex. Words are a little tricky, as you can see in the last picture I just cut them out (backwards!) as opposed to making them raised.

If anyone makes their own stamps after reading this, I'd love to see them!

30 comments:

ara133photography said...

That is AWESOME, thank you so much for the great tutorial! Cute stamp :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing, they are lovely!!! I came from Etsy forum.

Smarty Pants said...

great tutorial, I think I may actually try this again.

Melody said...

Wonderful tutorial!
I actually have the speedball rubber and carving tool, but haven't been brave enough to carve anything yet. I'll share pics when I do! :) Thanks for the tut!

reelbigpenguinpoo said...

wow this is so cool. strange, but i actually decided to make my own stamps out of erasers a couple of weeks ago! i followed the link here from your etsy shop after you replied to my forum post

:)

Maria said...

this is an awesome tutorial! I must try it one day! thank you for posting :)

Heidi said...

Found you through Etsy forum... this tutorial is fantastic!!
You made it look easy, but I bet it's really tricky and fiddly. Great clear photos. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial! I have to try this.

sandritocat said...

Looks great. I esp. like the one you made with your url. Was that one hard? I just might have to try it.

Kilkennycat said...

Really awesome tutorial! I hadn't the slightest idea how one makes rubber stamps.

Thanks so much! (I love the little potato beetle too!)

Esma said...

Thanks so much for posting this! I've been thinking how useful a stamp of my logo would be, so I'll have to try to make one... looks like fun :)

Little Lovables said...

Wow, I love this, I've been wondering how to do it too!

Tizzalicious said...

I was just about to try making one, so yay for this! :D

muffintopdesigns said...

how AWESOME is this? going to look for some speedball rubber today!!!! thanks, bug lady!

xoxox muffin

http://muffintopdesigns.blogspot.com

Jodie said...

I love this tutorial and your blog (as well as your shop). I have no need for bugs as of yet but I'll be adding you to my blog sidebar.

Robin Lynne said...

I loooove it!

GalleryJuana said...

Great Tutorial ... now I have a new project!

Jess (aka LittleBunny) said...

excellent tutorial!

Distressing Delilah a.k.a. jenn said...

oh boy..something else I want to start doing!

Rosebud Collection said...

You did such a beautiful job explaining how to make a stamp..Thank you for sharing your gift..I am going to write it all down and try it..

Caroline said...

I learned how to make stamps in a book arts class a couple years ago... but this tutorial made me want to pick it up more seriously. Great stuff!

Sarah McBride said...

what a fabulous tutorial!
thanks for sharing!! Your stamps look great!

glitterstar said...

I remember doing this in high school. It was so much fun. I might have to give it a try again. Thanks for the post.

xoDanielle said...

so fabulous! you're amazing :)

Field Notes said...

Wonderful tutorial! That is great information and supportive, helpful photos.

MSN said...

Great tutorial! I have been carving my own stamps for years. I find it to be mildly addictive. Yours came out great!

WillowStreet said...

Wow - that's cool!!

Anonymous said...

This is brilliant, thank you! I've made my own stamps but didn't think of carving letters to make a stamp of my shop name... I've been printing them out and cutting and gluing them painstakingly on all my Moo cards because I didn't have my shop when I got my Moo cards printed... why didn't I think of this?!! Brilliant!

Anonymous said...

thansk so much for this awesome post! I have been wanting to make my own stamps to promote my etsy shop, but didn't knwo where to get the supplies or where to being...You make it look so easy!!! :0)

http://cloud9designstudio.etsy.com

LoveMeKnot Creations said...

this is great, you are too helpful Weird :)