DIY Signature Stamp

As some of you may remember, I customized some thank you cards. I thought it would be nice to create a signature stamp so I could save my hand a little after writing personal messages inside the 50 cards. I thought this would be a great thing to share for those of you who are also a teacher of some form, recently or soon-to-be getting married, or graduating from high school or college. Signing tons of thank you cards could be more fun with your own stamp.

So all you need is:
speedball linoleum print block
linoleum carving tools
tracing paper
a fine tip Sharpe
and patience.

You can purchase all of that at your local craft store like Michael's or online at websites like Amazon. I'd stick away from art supply online stores unless you plan on buying other art supplies because the shipping can be expensive the products aren't discounted that much. Amazon is your best bet if you're already purchasing something else such a book or etc cause you can get free shipping. I couldn't wait, so I went to Michael's. The speedball linoleum print blocks were on clearance so I was able to snatch a stack of them for $1.50 each, but they're only around $2.99 normally, and you won't use the entire block on your signature so you could make some other small stamps too.

(More after the jump)

The craving tools can be a bit more expensive though, so make sure you purchase it when you have a 40% coupon. Depending on how much you think you're going to be carving and making stamps, I would just buy the simple carving set I bought, unless you do indeed plan on doing this a lot. With the coupon this only cost $8

You can purchase this from Amazon here if you don't want to drive to the store.

So I unfortunately didn't take many photos during this, I got so caught up in the project. But here's a few...

So the most important thing to remember when turning any words into a stamp is to REVERSE it. To make your life easier make sure you write it on the tracing paper. After you write the word(s) or name in my case, turn the tracing paper over so that the image is a mirror image of it. Then rub the image onto the carving block, I used a Sharpe and it rubbed off...the key is to rub evenly and fast enough that it transfers. When it transfer it will be very light, so feel free to retrace it with your Sharpe or pen before you beginning carving. The last step is pretty self explanatory....carve away anything that isn't your word(s) or name. When you finally think you're done, try it on a scrap piece of paper before using it on your project. You can see in my last photo, that tiny line under my name was not carved away enough, had to go back and fix that.

 And you're done!


 Now to fill out all these thank cards for my students.