Carving your own stamps is a great way to make something unique that you can use again and again. You don’t necessarily have to be good at drawing and naive styles look lovely, so it is time to jump right in and add another skill to your creative bank!

There are a range of different materials available to carve so let’s start with something you already have in your house – vegetables! All you need is a craft knife and you can turn vegetables into stamps to use with inks and paint. Once you have caught the carving bug, try a plastic eraser! You can find small, cheap, white eraser blocks at your local newsagents and some supermarkets – these are great for making little stamps, patterns and even sentiments!

The next upgrade is to use products designed specifically for stamp-carving, my two favourites are the Speedball Speedy Carve and the EssDee Mastercut. Both of these products are really soft and easy to carve. You will also need some Lino cutting tools and you can generally find sets of interchangeable blades that come with a handle at very good prices in art shops.

Once you have your eraser or carving block, draw your design directly onto it or transfer the image explained in this feature, then cut the negative space away from the design; remember to keep your fingers away from the blades! The line of your design will be left behind and you can ink up the stamp and test it to see how much of the block you still need to remove.

Start by carving a few easy designs to get the hang of it and once you have you can unleash your creativity and carve whatever you want!

1

Draw your design either directly onto the block or on paper using a pencil. Place the paper face-down on the block and rub the reverse to transfer the image

2

Use a lino cutting tool to cut around the lines of the design then cut away the unwanted parts of the block

3

Ink the cut block and stamp out the design on scrap paper. Check the image by inking and stamping onto scrap cardstock, then cut away any unwanted sections if needed

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Stamping Paper techniques Mixed media Creative Stamping Masterclass skillbuilder Kim Dellow diy papercraft how-to CS55 stamp carving