Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Carving Your Own Stamps From Erasers

There are so many wonderful, gorgeous stamps to buy, but another way of expanding your rubber stamp collection, is by carving your own. You can use most erasers for this, and create simple patterns for background stamping, or detailed motifs of any kind—flowers, symbols, letters or whatever your imagination and patience bids you.
Part of my own hand carved stamp collection
This floral vine is inspired by an indian wood block. 

Right-click the image above to save it to your computer, and print it to fit the size of the eraser you have chosen for this stamp.

Transfer the motif to the eraser (use the old pencil transfer trick drawing on the edges, flipping the paper placing it on the eraser, then drawing on the back side of the paper so the first drawn lines are transfered to the eraser.)

If you are drawing your own image, you can simply draw directly on the eraser, or sketch on a paper until just right, then transfer as described above.
Begin carving carefully around the edges,
then trim off the rest of the eraser surface.
Test to see if you got all of the little bits and pieces carved clean,
and trim the edges using a knife, so you have a better feel of the figure when you turn upside down to stamp.

The wonderful Geninne Zlatkis is in my opinion a master of stamp carving. Visit her at Geninne's Art Blog where she also shares her beautiful watercolors and so much more :-)
She even wrote a book on stamp carving which is brand new–due out in October. 
Another really great "carver", with her own very distinct style is Mimi The Rainbow.

I hope this was helpful, and that you have fun carving you own rubber stamps :-)

9 comments:

  1. this is great christine! would love to try it. x

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  2. smukt, smukt, smukt! - og meget inspirerende. Tak :-)

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  3. Det er nogle fantastiske DIY, du laver :)
    Jeg har faktisk allerede lavet nogle stykker, som er blevet rimelig gode. Men jeg skal da absolut forsøge mig med denne. Er dog nok lige nødt til at anskaffe mig nogle redskaber først (Panduro Hobby fører dem ikke, så jeg må på jagt andetsteds).

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    Replies
    1. Hvor er det spændende - drøner over og ser om du viser dem på bloggen :-)
      Det kan rigtig godt betale sig med godt værktøj (gå aldrig ned på udstyr ;-) - særligt linoliumsknive er gode at have i en ordentlig kvalitet.
      Tak for de søde ord :-)

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    2. De hjemmelavede stempler er nu synlige på bloggen.
      Jeg har også lagt billeder ud af de kort, jeg har fået produceret.

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  4. ooooh i love this
    and pinned it to my
    pinterest...thank you
    for sharing...how are
    you...always so fun
    to visit...xoxo

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  5. This is so wonderful Christine ... I've only tried my hand at stamp carving like this once before ... but I don't think I applied the right amount of patience. I must give it another go, and make use of your tutorial. :)

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