Adventures in Stamp Carving

I've always wanted to try linocutting or woodblock printing, but I never wanted to drop the money for all the little carving tools and paint roller and such. I saw a tutorial a couple years ago for carving your own stamps from rubber erasers, and I was immediately intrigued. I could do that!

I got a really basic carving tool for fine detail work, since my designs were going to have to be pretty small. I bought a Magic Rub eraser at the craft store and made my first "Fragile Glass" stamp, which I've been using for about a year and a half to mark all my postal boxes. I was never really happy with that stamp though, and I really wanted to make something more fun.

I was having an especially inspired day last week, and I finally pulled out the extra erasers I got at SCRAP months ago. I made a second "Fragile" stamp, which looks a lot nicer than the first. It was so fun!

I've been working on this badger design for awhile, and I thought I'd just test it out for carving. I'm so pleased with the results! I don't know what I'll use it for, but I'm just thrilled that I can put that toothy badger face on pretty much anything I want to. Now all I want to do is pick up more rubber to carve into little stamps...