Hand-carved Stamps: A Tutorial

Like your knitting, spinning, or crochet, hand-carved stamps bear a satisfyingly analogue trace of you: this increasingly airbrushed world needs that.

Then there’s the self-sufficient pleasure of being able to make any image you want—no matter how obscure or specific.

But perhaps the best thing is how stamps can celebrate the stories of your life.

When my nephew found a cowrie (Trivia monacha) on our beach, I carved a stamp. Finding the shell is a moment he remembers and I’ll enjoy wrapping his presents this Christmas in cowrie paper and, perhaps, making a bookmark, too.

January 1 was an inauspicious start to 2025, spent repairing torn wire mesh on our chicken pen in a howling gale, whilst being slapped in the face by a wet tarpaulin. On January 2, we saw a seal whose gleaming ocean presence set a better tone for the year. I carved a stamp. It has popped up in my journal ever since, a joyful symbol of uplift and kindness.

Those of you taking my New Year class will meet this seal of approval in your printables! In fact, the method I’ll share here was used to make all the printable images.

Why not carve a stamp or two to add your own images to the ones supplied?

Here’s a basic how-to.

Supplies:

Lino-cutting tools: Essdee (UK) and Speedball (US) make good introductory sets with a handle and interchangeable cutters.

Erasers to carve: White pencil erasers (UK) and Paper Mate Pink Pearl (US) are great.

Ink pad(s): I love StaZon by Tsukineko.

Paper to stamp: tissue paper, magazine pages etc.

Tracing paper for transferring your design.

Softish pencil (2B – UK, #1 – US).

Cutting mat.

Exacto knife.

Metal ruler for straight lines when cutting erasers.

Design your stamp

If you’re feeling bold, draw straight onto your eraser with a pen and start carving right away.

However, your stamp needs to be a mirror image of your design. If the image needs to be oriented a certain way—or if you’re using words—make life easier by drawing your design with a softish pencil on tracing paper first.

Draw thick lines and remember: when you carve your stamps, you’ll carve away the space around the lines and not the lines themselves. For my example, I’m drawing a pistachio from a pistachio farm we visited on our holidays.

Transfer your image

Once your design is drawn on the tracing paper, lay it on your eraser graphite-side down and rub the back firmly. Lift up the tracing paper: your design should have transferred directly onto your stamp and be a mirror image of your drawing.

If your design is smaller than your eraser, cut away the excess with an exacto knife and save for future stamp-making.

Carve your stamp

It takes time and practice to understand which cutters to use for different carving tasks but I’d suggest starting with a slim V-shaped cutter to get the fine details first…

…cutting off extra rubber with your exacto knife…

…then cutting the edges with a wide, U-shaped tool.

Check your stamp

Once you’ve carved your stamp, dab it on your ink pad and do a test print on waste paper. Do you have artifacts, which are raised bits of rubber catching ink, to remove?

I found a flaw in my eraser—a line that was bothering me—and I wanted to fix the shape at the top, so I started over and made a second stamp on the back of the first.

I prefer this second shape. The lines are more slender, and I like the shape at the top of the pistachio shell.

Refine your stamp

Cut away artifacts and make any other desired changes.

Repeat the last two steps until you are happy.

If you ruin your stamp it doesn’t matter: just use everything you’ve learned to try again with a new eraser or on the back of the one you’ve carved. My cowrie design took several goes until I ended up with something I liked. Every try just got me more invested in the mission!

Enjoy your stamp

Congratulations on your first hand-carved rubber stamp!

Some ways to enjoy it:

Stamp onto pages torn from magazines; scraps of tissue paper, etc. Cut your stamps out and stick them in your journal.

Stamp straight onto the page to mark special moments: I decorated the pages of my journal from the day we visited the pistachio farm with stamps straight onto the pages and also stamps on tissue paper.

Make matching gift-wrap and tags.

Finally, revel in knowing your stamps could only come from you.

Know that this kind of inky mischief represents a form of resistance to perfectionism; a cherishing of our hands and the magic they can work; and an insistence that our human touch still really matters.

For a more in-depth look at this subject, subscribe to Felix’s Journal with Me membership, (here’s the link with an affiliate code for MDK) and check out the replay of the October 9th class “Put your stamp on it.”