Homemade rubber stamps might be the perfect adornment for your invitations, thank-yous, & place-setting cards. And they're so fun to make! Our example uses an acorn for a nice autumnal motif …
- To carve the stamp, you'll need a rubber stamp block, carving tool, pencil, and tracing paper.
- Sketch some friendly acorn folk on the tracing paper until you hit upon one with the right personality for your cards.
- Cut out your acorn of choice, cut a piece of the carving block to fit, place drawing upside-down on block, and rub firmly with blunt end of your pencil until the drawing appears on the block. (You can also of course draw your acorns directly onto the carving block, but I am not so confident!)
- Using the finest-edged carving tool, slowly & carefully carve away all of the excess of your stamp block. You'll want only the portions with pencil marks to remain. Here is an excellent video of the carving process! (video via Geninne's Art Blog)
- Once you have only the little acorn left, you're ready to stamp. (And no, this finished acorn lady is not the one I started with- it's like on cooking shows!)
- I used tiny vintage rubber letters to stamp the "Thank You" on my cards, but handwriting works just as well. A gold stamp pad and pen can add a little holiday glamour.
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I used this same method to make Christmas cards out of my kids' drawings. You need a simple, graphic drawing and you can hand color it with magic markers or colored pencils, if you like.
It makes a stunning, personal, easy holiday card.
Carving stamps is seriously addictive. There's something so satisfying about it.
I love the little eyelashed acorn!
aaahhh I'd really love to be able to buy stamp blocks and carving tools someday! right now I'm limited to pink erasers and an exacto knife which gets a bit challenging.
melle, i dont understand why that has to be some far away thing. that stuff isnt expensive at all, i got the lino tool, 2 sheets of good quality rubber,and exacto knife, and some foam backing for about 30 dollars. you can buy a 4x6 sheet of rubber for four dollars : ) i reccomend stampeaz.com its a lot cheaper than what they linked
melle, if can spend five dollars on a pink Speedball pad, you'll find it nicer than any eraser. I found mine cheaper at a local art supply store; just linking here for illustration.
You can make stamps without all the other goodies listed here, though they're nice to have eventually. I made the stamps for our hand-made wedding invitations, including some scrolled alphabet stamps. I own a set of carving tools, but even so I ended up relying on my trusty X-acto knife. Just be sure to use a new, sharp blade.
The Speedball is thin enough so you need to mount it on something. For smallish stamps, I cut some old plastic wine corks into short cylinders and glued 'em to the backs of the stamps for something to hold onto.
For bigger stamps, you want sometime with broad coverage, so the pressure of your hand distributes well across the design as you press it down, and big enough to hold onto. I just used more Speedball pad, since I had it handy. I stuck it on with double-stick tape so I could pull apart the pieces later.
My dad used to carve stamps out of used rubber erasers - you know, the kind so old they were cracking and black from all the lead/graphite.