Carving stamps using material and tools from the dollar store!

Another day, another video about stamp carving!

In the following video which I recently posted on YouTube, I wanted to give frugal crafters a reason to pick up stamp carving as a hobby - so I headed to a dollar store to see what can be carved on a shoe string budget.  This is not as much as a "how to carve" stamp tutorial as it is showing you what I purchased - and why. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Without further ado, here it is:

So all told, it was a little over $12 CAD for these stamps.  I wasn't as off put by these erasers as I have been in the past, but there are certainly some erasers that are perfect carving materials - really only limited by their size.

If you'd be interested in a post showing different eraser types - and how they carve! - let me know :)

Happy carving!
Jo

How to carve your own stamps: light and magnification

Just to follow up on my previous post about improving your stamp carving, for your viewing pleasure, I have a video up on YouTube to help you see what I'm talking about.  Enjoy!

About the terminology I use on this website

Stamp carving is one of those niche crafts that not a lot of people are into. As a result, there doesn't seem to be a consistent set of language that is used when other people talk about stamp carving, and often made worse because there are stamp carvers around the world trying their best to translate the ideas from other languages. 

While this is super awesome, it means that I might be using different words to refer to different aspects of carving.  So without further ado, here is my list of terms (alphabetically arranged, natch) for you to see.  Please let me know if there is a word that you think should be included :)


Carving rubber: almost certainly not actual "rubber", but the material that is being used to carve on.  Many companies use a proprietary formulation - likely a mix of dino juice and chemicals - and there is a wide range of types of carving materials.

Slab: my lazy way of referring to a large block of carving rubber.

Transfer: the process of getting a design onto the carving rubber.