Whassup peeps?! I have a new tutorial! Today it's going to be how to make hand carved eraser stamps. I did them during a blackout when I couldn't go online or work, so I think they're a productive and very therapeutic way to spend your time. I already made a bunch before I took these pictures, so I'm making a new one for this blog post. Particularly, the yarn and needles stamp on the gift tag I made below for my crochet/knitting & hat shop orders.
You don't need a lot to make eraser stamps, these supplies look more numerous than they really are. Basically you should have:
1. A hobby knife or a lino engraving set (the sharper the better!)
2. An eraser block (the bigger the better)
3. A stamp pad
4. Paper
Everything else is just supplementary, like a hole punch for making gift tags or any other scrap-booking tools.
I'm using this Faber Castell Pencil & Ink Eraser today. I don't want the harder blue section so I'm cutting it off and leaving the softer white part. I use a regular box cutter for this. Incidentally, you can also use a cutter for engraving, but you should be careful because they can slip!
Also, I placed cardstock underneath the eraser before I cut so I wouldn't slice my narra table up.
Next I drew my image straight onto the eraser with a pencil. You can draw it on parchment or kitchen wax paper first (which I did with other stamps that have slightly more lines) and then rub the mirror image onto the stamp, but I felt this was all right to draw straight onto the block.
I lol'd at myself when I finished carving because I should have drawn the needles facing the other direction, but whatevs, haha. I'm doing a NEGATIVE SPACE stamp, meaning I carve out the black parts, and leave the white parts.
A REGULAR carving means you carve out all the white and leave the black parts.
Tips for carving:
1. Obviously don't hold it like the picture I took for blog purposes, lol. I'll post a video tutorial someone else did after this photo so you can get a better idea of how to carve.
2. The most important thing is to hold the knife tip at a 45 degree angle, and rotate the block instead of the knife so you have an easier time. If you cut straight down, you will have a hard time removing what you just carved. Cutting at an angle makes everything much easier.
3. Shallow engravings work perfectly fine so you don't need to make the grooves so deep.
This is a video of someone doing a regular stamp (leaving black lines and carving the background).
I've finished carving my negative space stamp so I'm stamping it on an Artline Stamp pad from National Bookstore to see if it looks all right.
I missed the bottom part of the needle on the left and the way they're facing looks funny (because I should have drawn them the other direction!), so I'm recarving to turn them into knitting needles.
Much better! I mean the needle angle is a little funny but it's like .5 x .5 inches big and I don't care that much. haha. :P
Here it is on thinner white notepad paper, and as you can see the ink is much more saturated than on slightly corrugated card stock.
A hole punch turns folded card stock into a gift tag. I had a ton of scrap card stock from my diy wedding invites and my band's EP launch years ago so I'm happy I can put them to good use!
These phone and tablet Mario covers that I made for my friend Jeffrey are going to Cebu. That's my hat shop on my ipad :3
And we're all done! I'll make a second post later with photos of all the other stamps I did.
Did you enjoy this tutorial? What stamp ideas do you have? Let me know! :)
Sup folks! It's been forever since I blogged properly so I'm back with a DIY (of sorts). Here's the short version, click read more for bigger pictures and how I got my sewing machine!
Welp, last July 1 was my birthday and The Boy surprised me with a SEWING MACHINE!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHH!
It has the easiest operating system ever because you know those dick caught in a ceiling fan jokes on youtube how-tos? Yep, I can actually make that happen because I'm so clumsy. Even if I don't posses a penis.
Okaaaay, moving on. The back says Singer:
I've been jonesing for a sewing machine ever since my mom's old Elna Portable broke down and I have been heartbroken, heartbroken I tell you. Until my birthday, because my husband can read my fucking mind and he just earned like 20 years' worth of brownie points with this gift.
It's made a lot of things easier for me, and neater! I used to handstitch designs on my hats, but some geometric shapes are so clean they look best machine stitched, like this Creeper Hat from Minecraft I'm currently working on:
Neat stitches yay!
On to ze tutorial!
I used to have this old denim jacket from high school. It fits me the same horizontally, but not vertically! My arms are too long for it, and they cut off at a weird length by my elbows making it hard for me to bend my arms, lol.
So I decided to cut off the sleeves.
I recommend marking 2.5 inches under the armpit seam, then cutting diagonally to the shoulder so you should have an upside-down triangle. ish. Make sure you leave about a quarter inch in length because you're going to hem them later.
Denim frays like nobody's business. So I hemmed the sleeves:
Prittyyyyyy.
Finished!
Hopes this helps you breathe new life into those old jackets from '97! Haha.
