Saturday, October 9, 2010

HAND CARVED LEAF STAMPS







This month I have to do a swap using hand carved stamps. Since fall is finally here, I thought leaves would be the perfect image to carve. Even if you can't draw, like me, these stamps are super easy to do. First, take a walk outside and pick up some fallen leaves you think would make good stamps. Place the leaves on your carving material, I used an old piece of Hunt Speedy Cut Printing Block that I had for ages, and trace around the leaf. Remove the leaf, look at how the veins are on it, and draw the veins on your leaf. Cut around the outside of the leaf with a craft knife with a sharp blade. Use a carving tool with a fine line tip to carve out the veins. I used a Speedball carving tool. If you don't have a carving tool, cut into the veins with the craft knife and then cut again, right next to the orignal cut but on a slight angle so you take out a tiny wedge where the veins are. Don't cut too deeply.






I stamped the leaves on brown card stock with clear pigment ink and then sprinkled on different colors of Adirondack embossing powders.

4 comments:

  1. Love the effect you got with the embossing powder way cool :)
    Von

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  2. Very nice carved leaves and a nice treatment with the ink & embossing powers. Donna

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  3. Just wonderful! I've never tried carving my own stamps but you have given me the inspirations. Thanks!

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  4. What a fun project to make your own stamps. I had taken an art class in college and we did something similar. We had to do carve our image too. It was fun and I loved it. Your card are wonderful. It brought back some fun memories! Thanks for the inspiration.

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