Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Tutorial Tuesday: Carmen's Carved Eraser Veggie Stamps and Notecard Set


Today's tutorial comes from our awesome Dover Crafting Ambassador, Carmen Flores Tanis, who gets us all in the back-to-school mood with some adorable little stamps made from erasers! (We've abbreviated things a bit, but you can read the full tutorial on Carmen's website.) 

Take it away, Carmen!


It is so easy to carve rubber erasers into little stamps and an easy way to add artwork to the stamps is to use clipart.

You'll need:
Instructions: 


1. Select your image: Instead of hauling out my heavy scanner, I just photographed the page with my iPad. I then used the ArtStudio app to size and flip the artwork so that it would fit on the erasers. (Be sure to flip your artwork so that it prints correctly!)

(DoverPictura note: the artwork Carmen uses in her tutorial comes from one of our out-of-print books that's not yet available on DoverPictura, but if you scroll to the bottom of this post you'll see some great suggestions for collections that feature similar art!)


2. Transfer image onto rubber eraser: I transferred the veggie artwork onto the eraser by using a piece of carbon paper and a pencil. Then I used a kraft knife with a sharp blade to carve away the extra rubber so that just the veggie outlines remained. (You could use a Speedball linoleum cutter but I prefer a kraft knife to get really precise cuts.) After a few minutes, the stamp was carved and ready for printing!


3.  Carefully carve your stamps: Stamp carving is addictive so of course I had to make a whole set of stamps!


4. Print:
I printed the stamps on blank white index cards using ink pads in blue and black. (I also cut away the extra rubber around the outside of each stamp to keep from accidentally printing unwanted areas.)


5. Color:
I printed the little girl on the envelope flaps and added color to all the printed images with colored pencils. Easy!

6. Add finishing touches:
As a finishing touch, I made a band to wrap around my new stationery. I cut a strip of green construction paper and after stamping the checkerboard pattern on it with blue ink, wrapped it around the bundle of notecards and envelopes. Finally, I used a Kool Tak adhesive pad to adhere a copy of the little girl onto an orange construction paper rectangle and then attached that to the green strip with another adhesive pad.

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Suggested images for this project:

Whimsical Animals Illustrations 0486999734 $12.99

Denslow's Wizard of Oz Illustrations 0486991466 $12.99
Old-Fashioned Children Illustrations 0486995933 $12.99


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