Many of you will already know that one of my crafty plans this year is to learn how to make my own stamps (see my previous post about stamp-making if you haven’t already!). I have a new found admiration for anyone who can make beautifully crafted stamps – it’s trickier than it looks! Getting a neat edge is really tough, but practice makes perfect…

Last week I had the idea to make a little button stamp. Then I had an idea of what I could use it for! So yesterday, I drew a few little sketches and settled on this button. It took a while to carve it, and I tried to do it as neatly as I could…

It isn’t perfect, but as you can see from the bottom left-hand square, it printed out ok! I’m really a perfectionist, so dealing with that can be hard sometimes…but I actually like the slight wonky nature of this button

I realised that the light was disappearing (come on, British summer time!) so I gathered all of my things and started printing. I thought that this stamp would make some great little notebooks – and as a craft supply hoarder, I had some of these little Moleskine notebooks that were perfect.

Then I got out my alphabet stamps too!

I like this black and white version, but decided to add a little extra touch by sewing in some cotton in different colours.

Make sure you snip any excess cotton as close as you can to the knots on the inside. Ta-dah! They’re ready for lots of crafty notes

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Making my own rubber stamps was one of my top crafty plans for 2014, and today I had my first attempt! I received this amazing book for my birthday (thank you Helen and Keith!) – ‘Making an Impression‘ by Geninne D. Zlatkis. The photos are so inspiring and the instructions throughout the book are really clear, so if you’re a beginner or more experienced I’d highly recommend it! I really love these stationery ideas:

And when I’m a bit better at stamp-making, I’d love to make this bird cushion:

For my first stamps, I decided to go for a simple plant pot and flower stamp. I had designed some funky geometric patterns (see first photo!) but I realised that they would probably be a bit tricky. The first step was to transfer the design on to the rubber (I bought mine here).

Then I used the size no.1 lino cutter to mark out the basic edges:

After that, I dug out a bit more around the edge using the no.2 and no.5 size lino cutters:

When my pot was finished, repeated these steps with the flower design.

Then I just had to test them out, keeping my fingers crossed that I’d done it ok!

I’m really pleased with my first attempt, but this is definitely something to keep working at, so I’ll keep trying…with these stamps, I drew in the flower stem with a pencil. I think that this would make really nice cards!

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