hand carved stamps

May 12, 2009 - Filed under How-to

stamp1 hand carved stamps
^{Picture from CraftPudding}

Martina turned me on to this cute little video of hand carving a stamp, so I thought I’d put together a post with some links and tips on carving your own. There are lots of great resources out there, but here just a few of my favs.

What you’ll need:

stamp2 hand carved stamps

• A carving tool – Without a doubt the Speedball Lino Cutter is the carving tool of choice and can be found at most arts & craft stores. There are lots of other brands out there, so don’t worry if you can’t find a Speedball, just look for a Linoleum Cutter.

You can purchase all of these online at Blick Art Materials.

stamp3 hand carved stamps

• Carving Material – If you’re just getting started you can practice on small plastic erasers, or purchase rubber stamping material which should be in the same section of your craft store. There are several brands out there, and you may want to try a few till you find something you like to work with. They all carve slightly different, but some are less likely to crumble.

Carving Material at Blick Art Materials.

stamp4 hand carved stamps

• Ink pads – Not only will you need ink to actually use your stamp, you’ll need it to test your stamp and make sure you’ve carved away enough of the rubber surrounding your stamp.

• Obviously you’ll also need a soft pencil, some paper, and if you have an Exacto knife they can come in handy as well.

The How To:

I’m not gonna go into all the details here, as there are lots of great tutorials already out there, so rather than recreate the wheel, I’m just gonna point you in the right direction.

stamp5 hand carved stamps