How to make Rubber Stamps

I mentioned that the rubber stamps arose out of sheer boredome in my last post. I promised I'd do my very first crafting tutorial on how you go about making one. So here goes...



1. Choose any easy clipart for your purpose. you can search 'x silhouette' in Google Image search where 'x' is the figure you're looking for. For the purpose of this tutorial I chose a a bat Stencil.


2. Draw the figure outline on the rubber mold (in my case, my itsy bitsy eraser). I found out that you can write really well with a ball point pen on an eraser. You may want to try your sketching abilities before you actually started scribbling over your rubber stamp Sorry, for the blurry photo of my drawing on the rubber! LOL
3. Start Etching around the figure. You want to go around 1/8th of an inch deep. You can use an X-acto knife or the tip of any sharp blade/knife*.

* Children below the age of 12 should not attempt to do this at all.



4. After you have etched completely around your sketch, flip to one side of the rubber cuboid and start cutting about 1/8 of an inch from the face that you etched the figure on. Continue cutting from all side until the outside pieces start falling out. You do not want to cut deeper than where your etched image boundaries are or for stamps like the clover, you may end up cutting the stem out (ask me how I know this!).
5. Your stamps ready, made a few finishing touches and then stamp away*...

* You may want to try this on a peice of paper first and then a scrap of fabric before you actually go crazy and start stamping over your horribly EXPENSIVE crepe silk that you only have one meter of!!

Go make a pile of these...



If you want to know more about the blade I used to make these, sadly, she's no more, her head fell off... I'll miis you dear Pidgie!



I hope I mentioned the things in an understandable manner. If anything isn't clear, ask me!
Edit:
If you are making directional or asymmetrical stamps, make sure to etch the mirror image of you chosen logo. Ask me how I know...