My first attempt at hand carving stamps



I have come across so many nice handmade stamps lately on Pinterest and couldn't wait to have a go at making some myself. So I bought a linoleum cutter and a load of erasers and off I went. There are many lovely examples out there so it was easy to find inspiration (here is my stamping board on Pinterest). I have found it so much fun!



All you need is an eraser, a pencil to draw motif onto the eraser, ink and a linoleum cutter. The envelope stamp above was inspired by a pin I saw on Pinterest. I have started making my own cards as well as decorating writing paper.



There are tutorials on the web for learning to carve stamps such as this one by Ishtar Olivera. I confess though that I went straight into carving without any know-how. The results were not great at first and I cut my fingers a ridiculous amount of times (those linoleum cutter blades are sharp!) but the results did get much better with practice. I would still recommend looking at a tutorial first though, I would have saved quite a bit of time and plasters if I had done so!

My favourite stamp I have made so far is the earth stamp. Here are a couple of examples of how I have used it.





If you are getting into stamping to I would recommend buying this book by Geninne Zlatkis. I just have and I think it's really good. It has detailed instructions on how to carve stamps and use them on different types of materials including fabric and stone. The book has lots of lovely photos and illustrations throughout showing examples of ways you can use your stamps, as well as templates you can use at the back. I found it really inspiring and it is now one of my favourite books. I am always on the look out for more stamp related tutorials/ books so recommendations are very welcome. 

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