Stamp Carving 101

Gathering the Materials

Carving blocks and common tools used for carving them

To carve a great stamp, you're going to need the right materials. To start with, you'll need the following items:

• Carving block (PZ Kut, Speedy Stamp (a.k.a. "that pink stuff") or MasterCarve works well, but do not use Speedy-Cut because it crumbles far too easily)
• X-Acto Knife
• Tracing Paper
• No. 2 pencil
• Pencil Sharpener
• Speedball nibs (and a Speedball handle to hold them)
  • #1 is absolutely essential for detailed carvings
  • #2 is useful, but not required
  • #5 (but #4 will work fine if that's what you have) is great for carving out large areas quickly

The Speedball Speedball Stamp Carving Kit (retails around $10—see picture at left) would be a good investment since it contains everything you need except the X-acto knife, pencil and sharpener, and the #1 nib. It even includes simple carving tips and images you can carve.

Speedball provides this popular starter kit for new carvers

The plastic version of the carving handle has a 'secret' compartment to store tips

Detailed carvings require the V-shaped #1 tip (left), while the broad U-shaped #5 tip (middle) quickly carves out large areas. The V-shaped #2 tip (right) blends the best and worst qualities of the two.

In a pinch, you can use a common eraser instead of material specifically designed for carving, but for high-quality stamps that really give a punch, use the good stuff. For one thing, erasers are limited in size and shape which severely restricts your creativity! Second, because erasers are not specifically designed for stamping, many of them crumble too easily, will not pick up ink from an inkpad well, or have uneven surfaces that terrifies stampers everywhere. For a quality stamp, I'd suggest sticking either to Speedy-Stamp (i.e. "that pink stuff") or the white Mastercarve (i.e. "it cuts like butter") blocks. They both are excellent for carving.

1. Stamp Carving 101 Intro
2. Gathering Materials
3. Finding Images
4. Transferring Images: Part I
5. Transferring Images: Part II
6. Carving the Stamp
7. Mounting the Stamp
8. What Now?
9. Samples & Examples