How to Do a Homemade Stamp

It's easy to do a homemade stamp for any occasion - greeting cards, bookmarks, thank you notes or any item that you would like to put your creativity and love into.

Here I made this stamp for some laisee (Chinese New Year Red Pocket) with my daughter a few months ago. It was a fun project, we made our own laisee before the CNY whenever we ran out of the previous design.

Step 1:
You can basically use any materials that are easy to carve and durable enough for the number of prints you need. I used a regular eraser that you can find from stationery. You can use a potato if you wish.

Step 2:
I like to sketch my idea start with a pencil so it can be changed if you make any mistakes.

Step 3:
A set of sharp wood carving knives is important tools. You want to cut the negative spaces out. Remember the flat surface of the stamping material that stays will be the "coloured" area on the print. You are cutting away the parts that are not "coloured".

Step 4:
This is the stamp ink pad I used. It comes with different colours, e.g. red, black, blue, etc. You can find similar ink pad in most stationery stores in your country.

Step 5:
Always do some test prints, practice the amount of pressure you will apply on the paper and make the ink as even as you can. The ink might be spread out a bit and not as sharp as you might imagine, that's completely okay. I like the grungy look to the prints, after all it's handmade and it should have a human-touch look to it. After decided the position of the image, you might want to align with a light pencil mark on each piece of paper so each print is on the same spot. Here I just went with freehand.

Step 6:
Finally, you want to have a large space to let your prints to dry once they are stamped. Make sure they are completely dried, so the ink doesn't stained the bottom of other piece. There you have it. Happy stamping~!

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