Crafty 2010 - Part 2: Carving rubber stamps

I spent a lot of time in the first part of 2010 looking at some beautiful stamps handcarved by talented people. To give a few examples I was in love with Geninne's and Memi's stamps [*], but also in these black birds by Kitty Kilian.

I have to be true: I was a bit jealuos and I decided to try to carve some stamps for me, although I hadn't right tools and materials. It was a saturday afternoon of June: coming summer always gives me energy and insipiration to do! An old pencil rubber and a cutter became my tools.

My first stamp has been a fox for my little shop. Not a notewhorthy result, but, oh, a lot of fun! I love it and use my black fox on every envelope I ship from my shop. I often made some recycled tags with it, too.

In the following days I realized also a water bird, a woodpecker and  swordfish. 

I decided to carve silhouettes, without details, because they are simple when you have not the right tools. But probably if I will find a professional rubber cutter (I'm going to look for it in my next trip to Milan), I'll try something more complex.

However, even with my poor cutter I was able to carve a stamp for a little girl, with her name, Lucia, and her favourite animal, a butterfly.

Happy me!

I had a great summer carving stamps :)

[*] Geninne has great tutorials about carving; Memi sells in her Etsy shop a guide about this art with a lot of pattern to use.