I first came across Geninne's Art Blog with a tutorial on making stamps out of erasers. They were so cute and seemed simple enough but turns out finding supplies is not. I looked at all the craft stores around here and no one had anything so I was forced to buy the two main supplies, the linoleum cutter and block online from Blick. To make stamps, you will also need some paper, a pencil, an exacto knife, and either parchment paper or tracing paper.
There were no directions for the speedball so I'll just describe how to use it here. It comes with all these blades, ranging from 1 (the smallest) and 6 (the largest)
It took me a couple minutes to figure out how to put them in the right way after searching for videos online without any luck. This is what I came up with. First we'll look at the blade. This is a number one, the right side is very small and the left is where you stick it into the handle. You will notice that it is curved and you'll see why in a second.
Ok, here's where the blade goes into. There's a little ball that the end of the blade curves around. You will need to unscrew the top (where the gripping is) to loosen these parts.
The highlighted area is where the end of the blade slides in.
You stick the blade in so that the curved edge fits around the little ball, and then tighten it back up.
Now you're tool is ready to do some carving! For your first stamp, I would choose something simple. I am a little hard headed and chose something... well hard.
The first step is to draw it out and then pull out your parchment paper or tracing paper.
Place it on top of your paper (it's easier if you tape them both down to avoid sliding) and trace your design.
Next you will take the parchment paper and place it on your block.
Holding it in place and rub the entire design so that the pencil markings stick to the block. Carefully remove parchment paper and if needed, fill in any spots that didn't make it.
It's going to be backwords, but that's ok. That's what we want. Now you're going to want to move onto carpet or a cutting board or something. With your exacto knife, you're going to cut the extra off the block so there's less to carve.
From here it's pretty easy. Start off with a larger blade and I just worked from the outside in, scooping away at the block.
You might have to test it with ink a couple times to make sure only your design is raised. In the end, this is what it will look like!
I also made another one that took me forever because of all the little detail.
And here is what they look like on paper.
It was super easy and I can't wait to make some more! I'm going to test it out on some erasers and see how that goes. Wellll, what are you waiting for?! Go make some stamps!
