Stamp them Apart!

Whether you have identical twins, triplets or “just” multiples that resemble each other, odds are you’ll encounter an ineffable amount of people who either can’t, or can’t be bothered to, tell them apart. To begin with you might not even be able to tell them apart yourself. When our boys were infants, we had to tie soft strands of cotton string in designated colours around their ankles to prevent a possible mix-up. And we tried, in vain, to assign each of them a different colour-scheme of clothes. In vain because where does the teal bodysuit belong? Is it with the green clothes (dad) or the blue (mum)? And who remembers that little F wears light and bright colours, when you have to get up in the middle of the night, and change his outfit for the third time do to reflux or a leaky diaper? At any rate, we didn’t, although other people might have greater discipline in that area.

But all this time I dreamed of a nicer solution, of something that wasn’t just a necessity. A way of differentiating, which the boys could actually grow up to enjoy, appreciate, and identify with as something special. And this is where stamps come in. You see, our little boys are animals. Not just because they literally are small mammals, who happily poop where they stand, will eat anything off the floor, and tug at their private parts in public. But because we’ve nicknamed them after little critters suiting their personalities, and previously dressed them up as such, resulting in big great cuteness. Bear, Fox, and bunny. These are their symbols, and now they are also their stamps. Stamps which can be used for their clothes, and for all kinds of other stuff, depending on the ink you use. Yay! And even better, custom stamps are easy to make, and this is how you go about it:

What you need

• Materials: Soft rubber blocks meant for cutting (like these or these) or plain ole’ rubber-erasers.
• Carving-tools: buy according to ambition. You can get really cheap sets of carving-tools that will do the job nicely, as long as you don’t plan on it becoming your new favorite pasttime, or strive towards some level of perfection. If this however is something you might enjoy doing and spend a bit of time on, I recommend getting just two or three really good tools like these.  Whatever tools you choose, they are the same type as the ones you use for linocut and block-printing. Also you’ll need a sharp craft knife, a disposable utility knife is fine.
• Ink-pads: there’s a ton of different ones to choose from, depending on the material you want to stamp on. I recommend getting some that are more or less universal to begin with, like these. They can be used on paper, wood and fabric alike, are cheap, and come in a ton of colours.
• In case you’re not the DIY type, you can simply skip these steps and buy some ready-made stamps! There are innumerable designs to choose from online.

What to do

Step 1: Draw or transfer your motif onto a rubber block. You can sketch and ink directly on the block, but if you don’t feel confident drawing, you can use a print of a simple black and white image to transfer. Keep in mind, that the image will become mirrored once you print it. This is especially pertinent, if carving out letters! If creating stamps with small children, you can have them draw on the block, and subsequently cut it for them.

Step 2: Carve away, but keep in mind that the tools are sharp, and run through these blocks like butter. Remember, that the image you are working on is a negative. The bits you cut out of the block will end up taking on the colour of the printed surface, and the material left behind will leave a print. This means, that if you make a line-drawn image (like the one above), you have to carve around the lines in order for your image to show up. Once the image is done, you can cut it free from the block with a craft or utility knife.

Step 3: Making a few testprints along the way makes it easier to see how the image is coming along. Plus it is fun. If you have a large ink-pad and are carving a small stamp, you can simply press the stamp onto the pad. But most often the situation is reverse, and you can just as easily ink a stamp, by lying it down on a flat surface, and dap the stamp with the ink-pad. In fact, I use tiny ink-pads for practically all of my stamps, even the really big ones.

Step 4: When you feel like you’re done, stamp away! You can combine multiple stamps to create more elaborate images, or repeat the same stamp to create a pattern. You can stamp on a variety of materials like paper, fabric, leather, unglazed ceramics and more. And best of all, stamping is so easy, that even a toddler can do it!

 

 

∼ TDD 2016 ∼

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