Hand Carved Stamps Tutorial Part 1

This is a list of the tools that I use to make my stamps.
You can certainly use other alternatives.
I am linking each item to Blick Art Supplies
simply because they have good photos
and it's where I usually buy my supplies,
but any of these things can be bought at any other
art/office supply store in your area.

1- A Speedball linoleum cutter is the tool you will use to carve your stamps. I use the No.1 and No.5 cutters. The No.1 is for carving out fine lines and the No. 5 for carving out large areas of the stamp.

2- You can use any kind of dense/soft eraser to make your stamps (I recommend Staedtler erasers, they work like a charm) or carving blocks made specifically for this purpose like MasterCarve, E-Z Cut, Soft-Kut and many more. For the purpose of this tutorial I will make stamps with erasers which are easily available to everyone.

3- A trusty (and highly dangerous) X-Acto knife for cutting the eraser or block material to the desired size or shape. Be careful with this tool! and always put the protective cap back on after each use.

4- Any type of archival ink pad. There are so many kinds of ink pads available out there! I use StazOn, or VersaColor, you can also use black ink pads from office supply shops.

5- A No.2 pencil.

6- Some plain white paper to do some stamping tests and to draw the image you want to transfer on to your carving block.

7- And last but not least: an idea ;) You have to decide what it is that you want to make...I would start with a basic simple shape. I use my teardrop shapes all the time or just a basic triangle like the happy Christmas trees I recently posted. Practice, practice, practice and in no time you will be making more intricate shapes.

Part 2 of the tutorial will be posted next friday so stay tuned!