How to carve your own stamp!

Ok, from time to time, I am asked to make things that I might not have at the moment in a stamp. For instance, someone wanted a baptism stamp, well, I made one for her, because I have never seen one! Well, I was asked to make a "potato" Thank You card. I have seen potato stamps. I even have stamps with potatoes on them, but I don't have a single lone potato. So when this kind of thing happens, I make my own!

I'm going to share with you how to carve your own stamp!

To start, I have this pink rubber from the craft store... you can also buy it in cream...just feel the edge of it, if you can rub it off like an eraser (its gritty), do not buy it! This feels like an eraser, but is smooth. You can buy it in many sizes of sheets, this is a 8 1/2 by 11 inch size.

I drew my potato on it in pencil. Then I used one of the tools and cut it out, you could also use a craft knife to cut it out.
Here it is cut out. You can also do a detail drawing on a piece of paper, and burnish it on the rubber instead of drawing it on freehand...so you could use clip art from the puter too...

This blade is a Large V blade. You can buy packets of blades at the craft store. They are really cheap and you can get 4-8 at a time for a couple of bucks. I like the Large V and the small V.

You put the tip of the V next to your pencil line and trace around the item, making sure not to cross over your pencil lines. Then I start to take out the outside, just taking strips.

Then I start taking out the inside that isn't needed. making sure to outline my pencil marks. You just work in a little area, taking out little by little.

Once you get it cleaned out and think that it is ready, I ink it up with a black ink pad to see what I have missed and clean it up some more.

See, I missed some at the bottom, plus there is some bits and pieces that didn't get taken out.

I clean the specks out and then use the blade to cut around it and clean it up. You could use a craft knife. The tools are actually linoleum tools. Funny huh!

Here is a picture of several of the tips, they interchange in the handle.

I put Tack it Over & Over on the back of the rubber. That way I can take it and put it on a clear block, then take it off and store it in on a sheet protector.

I ink it up and stamp it!

Here's my Potato Thank You!!

Hope you like it!! If you have any questions, please leave a comment or email me!!