Project: Making Stamps For Crafting

Making stamps can be SO much fun if you have the right tools and materials. You truly only need four things to create your own stamps for scrapbooking, artistic card swaps, pocket letters, general arts and crafts projects, and anything you might go out and buy a stamp for. If you break down the cost of purchasing E-Z-Cut Printing Blocks, and a Gouge. It's cheaper to make your own hands down. Plus, when you are in dire need of a stamp that you just can't find, making your own is probably quicker than  hunting on the internet, looking for hours for what you want, not finding it, driving around to your local craft stores in search of it, ending up just frustrated, low on gas, and patience.  That's the boat I found myself in the other day. Until I found this great material called E-Z-Cut. 

Dick Blick sells it here:

e-z-cut-printing-blocks

You'll also need this:

speedball-linoleum-cutters

What you'll need:

E-Z-Cut Printing Blocks

Lino Cutter (Gouge)

Pencil

Paper

This is all you need.

So I was looking on the internet for a particular stamp that I couldn't seem to find. I was not a happy camper, once I did find what I wanted it wasn't available or it was sold out. So Mitch told me about this great stuff called E-Z-Cut! HOLY SMOKES! So I got some, which was wicked easy to come by, got myself a gouge (aka Lino Cutter) went back and found the stamps that I wanted to duplicate, and went to it. See what happens when a little idea turns into a nice little project to keep me super busy!

One of the stamps that I thought was super cute!

This was what I really was looking for!!

So in order to do this grab some plain printer paper, nothing fancy, scrap will do as long as it's white. Go ahead and either draw it out your image free hand, copy the image, or trace it on to that white sheet of paper. Draw it just the way you want to use it. 

 If you draw out the image first you will know exactly how big of a box you will need to cut for your stamp. Cut the E-Z-Cut with a box cutter, or Exacto knife. E-Z-Cut is so soft that you only need to cut about half way thru, it will snap in half after that with little to no effort.

 Once you've got your image drawn, and your shape cut out of the E-Z-Cut, go ahead and flip your piece of paper over onto the top of the E-Z-Cut. You will need to apply some pressure to get your graphite from your pencil to transfer. I just used my fingers, and rubbed up and down on the sheet of paper. When you lift the paper up your image will transfer in the reverse. 

It will look like this.

Once you get your image transferred you can go ahead and get out your gouge or Lino Cutter. This is where you have to take your time. Anything that you want solid you need to cut around. Take the teapot for example. In the picture above, the teapot is red, if you want your ink to stick to the stamp you need to leave the surface of that portion alone. Anything in relief will not keep the ink. Take a look at the bottle, I wanted just the outline of the bottle so I carved out the middle of the bottle and just left the outside lines, the shading, and the cork.  

I practiced on the teapot first before carving out the bottle.

Once you are done it should look something like this.

The first go around with my stamps I used an old envelope in order to see where I might need to take more of the E-Z-Cut away with my gouge. If you look at my teapot in the right hand corner you will see that I didn't cut away enough and the ink transferred to the higher points of the stamp. Once I put ink on them and practiced I could see where they needed some tweaking here and some more digging there. You can see I had to do the same thing to the bottle too. Both sides on the right hand side needed to be taken down some more. Once you get the hang of this method the sky is the limit on how many stamps you can make for yourself. It's hard sometimes to find that PERFECT stamp, but with this material you are only limited by your imagination, and your patience for detail. 

I don't plan to go all Picasso on my stamps, but for the time being, using this material opens up a whole new world of awesomeness to play in. I might not be the greatest artist, or have a fancy cutting machine to give me those precise stamps that you can purchase at any number of craft stores, but this works for me, and that makes me super happy! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!