Crafting with School Supplies: Carved Eraser Veggie Stamps and Notecard Set
Love those veggies!
The theme for this month's Designer Craft Connection Blog Hop is "Crafting with school supplies" and all I can say is that I'm sure glad that I didn't know about carving erasers to make stamps when I was in school because no eraser would have been safe from my carving zeal!
It is so easy to carve rubber erasers into little stamps and an easy way to add artwork to the stamps is to use clipart. My favorite clipart collections are the Dover Publication books. I've been collecting them for years and have so many that they have their own bookcase in my house. They are great for pretty artwork, inspiration and research. With the older books, you used to have to scan or copy the artwork to use it. More recently each book comes with the artwork on CD which makes things so much easier. And even more fabulous is that nowadays you can skip buying books and CDs altogether and purchase and download Dover artwork straight off their website! Plus you don't even have to buy the entire collection anymore; you can just download whatever images you want. Way cool!
Here's how:
Carved Eraser Veggie Stamps and Notecard Set
Materials:
- White erasers
- Blank white index cards
- White envelopes
- Dover Publications clip art book
- Kool Tak™ 3D Adhesive Foam Pads – 3/8″ diameter x 1/16″
- Construction paper - orange, green
Tools
- Ink stamp pads - blue, black
- Colored pencils
- Kraft knife with sharp blade
- Pencil, carbon paper, adhesive tape
1. For this project I wanted cute images small enough to fit on erasers. I chose the book "Children and Their World: A Treasury of Vintage Cuts and Illustrations" by Judy M. Johnson - Dover Pictorial Archives.
This book was published in 1990 before Dover starting including CDs with digital copies of the clipart so I did have to scan the artwork.
Instead of hauling out my heavy scanner, I just photographed the page with my iPad. I then used the ArtStudio app to size and flip the artwork so that it would fit on the erasers. (Be sure to flip your artwork so that it prints correctly!) Next, I printed a copy of the artwork straight off my iPad by using the app PrinterPro. I had never tried this before and was so happy at how well it worked!
2. I transferred the veggie artwork onto the eraser by using a piece of carbon paper and a pencil. Then I used a kraft knife with a sharp blade to carve away the extra rubber so that just the veggie outlines remained. (You could use a Speedball linoleum cutter but I prefer a kraft knife to get really precise cuts.) After a few minutes, the stamp was carved and ready for printing!
3. Stamp carving is addictive so of course I had to make a whole set of stamps!
4. I printed the stamps on blank white index cards using ink pads in blue and black. (I also cut away the extra rubber around the outside of each stamp to keep from accidentally printing unwanted areas.)
5. I printed the little girl on the envelope flaps and added color to all the printed images with colored pencils. Easy!
6. As a finishing touch, I made a band to wrap around my new stationery. I cut a strip of green construction paper and after stamping the checkerboard pattern on it with blue ink, wrapped it around the bundle of notecards and envelopes. Finally, I used a Kool Tak adhesive pad to adhere a copy of the little girl onto an orange construction paper rectangle and then attached that to the green strip with another adhesive pad.
That saucy little carrot cracks my husband Bruce up. I was so happy with how this turned out and it cost me only pennies to make! The erasers, index cards and colored pencils I got at the Dollar store and everything else I already had at home. Wouldn't these make super fun gifts? Carve another stamp with a special name or word and use it to add a personalized touch to the notecards. And then add the stamp as part of the gift! With veggies so cute, everyone will want a second serving!
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You can see lots more August Craft ideas by following along on the Designer Crafts Connection Blog Hop. Just click on the "hop forward" or "hop back" buttons on the badge to visit the next site. You'll be inspired when you see all that the Designers have created!
