Stamps, Stamps, and More Stamps!

So, I really have a tendency to learn how to do something, whether artistically, culinarily, or just whatever, and then go crazy with ideas of how to put this new talent/knowledge to use. More often than not, the interest fades out, or money subsides, halting production on whatever I was working on. For this reason, I own stools that I was refurbishing in my own quirky way that are half sanded and in dire need of another run over with the wood burner, and have recipes that I never wrote down, swearing that I'd remember them, and no, of course, I don't. Most recently, as a by product of trying to find some way  to put our own logo on the back of homemade Harry Potter Apples To Apples cards, I stumbled across stamps at Michaels. Suddenly, while searching for stamps that didn't exist, I saw a few wedding ones and got the idea of making my own wedding invitations. I have currently done two trial invites and think I finally have a good idea as to the design for  the outside, it just requires patience and a few more materials.

Of course, this is sideways, but you get the picture.

Anywho, that led me to my next step, searching Etsy to find someone who will make a single stamp containing all of the information that needs to go on the inside. While I'm still toying with this idea, it turns out to be more expensive than I'd like, so I might have to go back to stamping it letter by letter with a smaller packet of letter stamps. Back to the story however,  this prompted me to search and see just how hard it might be to make your own stamp. After just a few minutes on google and youtube, I was equipped with the knowledge to at least go make my own HP AtoA stamps. In case you're wondering, here's a video on how it's done.                                                                                                                    

So I went to Michaels to purchase either a stamp pad or an extra large eraser.  I found the pads in no time, but they were more expensive than I wanted to spend. When I was about to check out however, I looked over at the $1 bins and saw this huge pink eraser that was perfect for the job, as well as the idea I had brewing in my head about making a stamp for the bookmark wedding favor I'd been trying to design.

I was pretty excited, and thought the quote on the front was kind of funny. If only I knew how true it would turn out to be. Sorry by the way, all of the pictures from my web cam are mirrored, which may or may not be ironic, I can't tell.

 So I went over to Thomas' grandparents' house, cut one of the erasers in half and went to work with my pen and carving tools. Everyone else thought it was pretty neat, with several of the cousins who helped telling me it was sort of therapeutic work. In no time we had two lovely apple-with-a-lightning-bolt stamps reading for the cards we still had to rewrite.

As you can see I even became victim of being stamped myself, as Kallan decided to go around stamping us all while we waited on dinner to be made and could not work on the cards because it would take up too much room. I'm actually pretty proud of how these turned out, except the fact that I should have gotten a better ink pad, and of course, I forgot that it would stamp a mirrored image rather than the one I cut out. Oh well, the lightning bolt works okay on either side.


So today, is when I thoroughly failed. I started to work on the bookmark stamp, and instead of planning it out, which is always my downfall, I got too excited and went ahead and started drawing and carving.

The result is what you see on your left. What is funny is that, using my computer's camera, the image actually looks like it should. However, when you actually see it, I didn't take the time to mirror the writing. I spent something like an hour and a half on this, and had half of it carved out, as you can see. I went to test it since I had a portion big enough to ink and not smear over the parts I hadn't worked on yet, and saw, whoopsy, it was backwards. I wanted to scream and laugh at the same time. Of course, I can go back to the store and get another eraser, and perhaps thinner carving tools to make the letter's a little bit tighter and less matisse font-like. For now, I'm frustrated and am thinking about just using whatever smaller letters I buy for the inside of the invitations, but maybe I'll stop back by and grab another eraser or two and try again soon. If I am I need to do it before they move them and I can't ever find  them again. Even if I give up on this idea, I may make some smaller, simpler ones for the kids at the wedding to play with while the adults are doing their socializing. The lesson after all of this though, is to plan ahead as much as possible. Don't let your excitement get the best of you, or you'll be out of several bucks and a few hours of time you could have been using to not fail at other things.
Oh well, you live and you learn. I'll probably definitely update again soon with how everything's going. Wish me luck!

Cheers!

For you're own tools to for stamp making: