A beginners guide to stamp carving

1. About this class: My name's Julie. In my first skill share class, I'd like to share with you how I carve my own handmade stance, will use these stamps to create a beautiful set of autumn inspired greeting cards. When I first started block printing, it was really difficult to find all of the information I needed to learn about block printmaking. So I've designed this class. With that in mind, we'll talk about the supplies that you need. We'll take a look at carving tools, the types of rubber blocks that are available. We'll also at Ks, for this class we will be using ink pads. We'll create a playbook. I'll teach you how to transfer your design and how we can make it easier to see the lines. At the end of it, we will create some beautiful images. I'm Julie Saunders and I'm an artist, a printmaker and surface pattern designer based in New Zealand. I've been printmaking and creating art for as long as I can remember. My favorite medium is carving lino or rubber. I love the result you get. My favorite to be and to be inspired is out in nature. I love going for a walk, getting into the forest. I love gardening and flowers. I'm also passionate about printing on fabric, and my work sells here in local galleries. I really hope that you enjoy taking this class, and you can use these stamps long after this class is finished to create something else. I'll see you soon. 2. Class Project: Your project for this class is to hand carve your own rubber stamps. You'll then take these stamps and handprint a series of greeting cards using ink pads. The template is available under the class resources. Please feel free to print this out and use that for this class. Or you may have your own motifs that you might like to car, which would be amazing. I can't wait to see what you're going to create. Let's get started. 3. Supplies needed: Let's take a look at some of the supplies you'll need for this class. You'll need your rubber calving material. Today I'm going to be using the Speedy Carve by Speedball. I'm going to use three pieces of this because I want to create all of my motives. Pieces here are approximately 10 centimeters by 15 centimeters. You can buy them in a larger size piece too if you can access those. We will take a closer look at the different types of carving blocks in an upcoming lesson. A craft knife, you'll need your lino cutting tools again. We'll talk about the different kinds that I've tried and used. In an upcoming lesson, you'll need a Sharpie, some scissors, cutting mat, your template, and some scrap paper. Lots and lots of scrap paper. We'll use this to rub off any ink that we don't want on our stamps and to test our stamps, you'll need some ink pads, any kind will do for this process. I do get really good results with the archival inks and the versifying clear. If you wanted to grab some of those, that would be amazing, but really not necessary. If you do have some ink pads at home, grab them out and give them a go. You'll need some wet white so that we don't accidentally transfer any fingerprints and things to our already printed images and cards. Sometimes it's a little bit hard. You'll need your greeting cards. These are just a heavier weight paper stock. Nothing fancy about them when you buy them, just make sure they can cover your head Chog or fit your head Chog. You will also need a basic pencil. 4. Carving tools: One of the questions I get asked about the most often is around the types of carving tools that somebody should get. I'm just going to share with you some of the ones that I've tried and used and then you can make your own choice from there about what's right. For my first set was one of this style here. These are available from any art and craft store. They come with all of the tip. To change your tips, you just unscrew this here and pop your new tip in. These are a really great first set because they give you the flexibility of having the different types of tips available. They cut a beautiful line. You'll also see some little wooden box set tools that are around. These, again, are a great beginner's set I used and used, and used again. They cut a really beautiful line for me. They come in all of the tips as well. We'll talk about those shortly. You can also buy individual pieces. This was an individual knife that I bought and it does come in all of the other tips as well. This knife has got quite a long handle. I don't use it a lot for carving, but I will use the edge of the knife for getting into really small spaces. That is also a beautiful carving tool. My absolute favorite tools are these ones here. These are a Swiss made tool and they're well worth the investment if you're going to continue your carving journey. These are what you call a palm chisel. They're a Swiss made tool, they're really wrong and well made. The palm chisels are really great for me because that fits in there. My finger goes there, I'm holding it like that, that is really comfortable in there, and then I'm carving. It gives me more control essentially. They are an amazing tool. They come in many different styles. You can buy them in sets or you can buy them individually. That some of them there. I mentioned before about tips for this class. You'll need two tools. One is this V shaped tool. It's in a shape at the end of a. We'll use this one to carve all of our lines. We'll follow the line around our stamp and use this one to create the line. The other tool we'll be using will be something that looks like this, like a crescent moon shape. That one we'll use to carve off all of the excess around the stamp. We don't want, they come in different sizes, as does the V. If you can get yourself a smaller one of the half of the crescent shape, a bigger one for bigger areas, and a really good V. That's what you need for this class. Just the three better yet, if you want all of the tips, pick yourself up one of these sets to start with. In that way you get everything you'll need. 5. Carving blocks: The other question I get past a lot is what type of carving material shall I buy? I'm going to share with you just some of the ones that I've tried. And we'll start with the Speedball Pink Speedy Carve. It's one of my favorites. And the reason it's one of my favorites is that it's super flexible, it's super spongy that when I'm pressing my stamp down on a piece of paper, I can get some really good pressure and it leaves me a really good impression. It's one of my gotos. That is why I choose to carve with this. I do have some others that I enjoy using. One of them is this cheaper brand. It's a Renoir brand. It's not as flexible as your Speedy carve. It's a lot thicker though. I will often use this one for my smaller stamps because when I'm stamping I've got more room for my fingers to hold. I'm not going to mess the ink up, essentially. I'll be pressing, I can hold it and lift it up without interfering with the image. That's also a really good option for you if you want to create a whole lot of small stamps. I'm sure there are other similar brands out there. You're looking for just a thicker block. This brand is another one that I enjoy using. It is called Master Cut. It comes in a two pack, a really economical purchase. It's a lot thinner than any of the others. You can see that there, it carves a beautiful line. You can see from my mushroom. But the trick is going to be when it comes time to creating your image, you've got him all linked up. Then you're going to have to hold him and get him on the paper and not move him or get your fingers. Then you're going to have to try and lift him up again. We've got more room to move with this pink speedy car, but a really good option, all you can get your hands on, there are some blocks, it out there. This one feels a lot more plasticy, so it doesn't even feel like rubber. I've used this in the past and got some pretty good results. There's lots of this type of material around as well. It feels very much like plastic I've carved with it. You can see here on my rabbit, it holds a pretty good line. If I wanted to use this stamp over and over again though, I would mount it, which is what I've done here, onto a piece of perspect. Just glue it. And that way when I am stamping because I'm not going to get much pressure, because it's so thin, I can pop it on there and get some really good pressure or I could brayer it to get a more even print. I thought I'd quickly talk about Lino as well. Some of you may have some line. It's the go too. For most printmakers, it's amazing. It just holds so much detail. For this purpose, line probably wouldn't work because we're not going to get any pressure on there. Normally, placing a piece of paper on top of the lino, rubbing out this way to get your impression. We're printing in reverse. We are creating a stamp and we're turning the stamp itself and the papers on the bot, then we're pressing this way for this class. Choose yourself a rubber carving material if you can. I hope that's helped. 6. Ink pads: Welcome back. I thought I'd just share with you some of the inks that I've tried and used when I create my own print. I have some that I go to more than others. One of those is the versifye clear. That's this one here and they come in many colors. It's got a really nice raised in bed for me, the verify, the ink that acts like a print making ink that you would bray up. It's really, really sticky. It's great for covering a larger stem. It's one of my gotos, versifie clear. It's a pigment ink. It is for me and for this process. One of my gotos. The other inks that I love to use for this process are the archival inks. The color range in these is just phenomenal. You get stuck actually on which colors to buy. These are amazing work really well for this process as well. The ink bed itself is not as raised as the versifye clear, but they do give a really good coverage. One of the most versatile, I guess that's the archival inks. And you will fall in love with many of the colors I've used, the versifye, which is really great for detail. You can buy other brands such as Versa Magic, which is like a chalky finish. You've got other inks that are suitable for fabric. Once you've created your stamp, you may want to start printing on some fabric as well. There are ink pads available for that. You can buy them in an umbra, which is something like that. That makes an interesting effect depending on the piece that you're creating could be really interesting. They come in metallics. Look at that. The metallic inks are amazing for really small details. You might have some berries that you want to accent in gold, that's really cool. Or make a print on black paper or dark paper, really useful. You've also got inks that come in minis. There's lots of different brands around. They are really good for your smaller stamps. A little bit more challenging to use if you're creating a bigger piece because it would take you a long time, number one, to ink up. Also because it is a smaller area, sometimes you'll get lines from the ink pad showing up on your stamp. I'll show you an example of that coming up. Grab out any of your inks that you may have lying around at home and start playing and see what you get. Because I'm a bit of an ink holder, I like to keep all of my inks in a book. That way I can see at a glance what colors I have when I'm creating a piece. For example, green is not green. I can take a look at this and decide at a glance which green might be the right green for a piece. I encourage you to do that, I'll just show you those metalics look at that, isn't that beautiful. 7. Create a play book: I get lots of inspiration from keeping any work that I create, even if it's just the play work and I keep it all in the book. This was some stamps that I carved, and I overlaid them over a cut out circle, so that I got this beautiful circle form. These are the same stamps, but in a different color. This was absolutely stunning. I really, really loved all of the colors in this pace. The orange stamp is one stamp. Then I created the stems, individual pieces, so that I could go up the page if I wanted to. I've played with some pebble shapes here and over them to see what that might look like. These blue ones are just one stamp as well, and again, I've overlaid them just to see what that might look like. This stamp here, very simple shape. I thought, oh, that's a bit retro. Let's have a play with that. And then I played with some retroclors. This piece, I had a big play with him and a lot of it didn't quite work out. I really didn't like the black, I didn't like the mushrooms where they were placed. I wrote some notes when I come to create them. Again, I've got the notes and I know what I need to do. I'll change that up. Playing again, this was one of my favorites. You can really do a lot with stamps. You can create your own paper, you can cover a journal. These leaf shapes here are one leaf and I've just overlaid them that I can get a flower look. Some paisley paper. Again, I'm playing for a new, exploring what might work. This piece here, I absolutely loved until I did the black, not sure why I put black on it, because it actually never quite works out for me. But it's about playing and exploring. This was one of my all time favorite pieces. I absolutely loved all of the colors on here. This would look amazing is fabric. Really liked those colors. You can really get to play once you've got a whole collection of stamps you can just create. The book is where I also just play with new stamps. The green squares there are from when I was talking in the ink video how I said it leaves lines, that's an example of that. Here I've tried to create a B. You'll always refer back to this book even if you don't like some of the images you create. When you go back through it, you think there are things that you will like, things that you might want to explore more. Even if you don't like the images, you'll get ideas through it. There's lots in there. I just really wanted to share with you my book and my inspiration. I encourage you to buy a journal or buy a book, or even keep a tray of paper, all of your play pieces in that, and then you've got something to refer back to that might inspire you to win your next carving. I hope this has been helpful. 8. Transferring your designs to the block: It's time to transfer our template to our blocks. So the first thing we're going to do is cut out all of our motifs from the paper just around the shape. You're not trying to be accurate at this stage. There we go. The next step of the process is to trace around each of our shapes. I've done a couple of the leaves here and I'll show you my transfer process using just an ordinary everyday pencil, we'll take our shape. All you're doing is drawing around the outside of your shape with your pencil. It's not a special pencil, it's just a standard HB round your shapes, draw around your steam. The next step is we're going to draw in all of the white space, because that is where we're going to carve drawing into that. These are our carving lines. Doesn't have to be perfect. I'm not taking a lot of care here, I'm just getting a mark for where I want the line to be. This maple leaf is a great shape to practice your carving skills. Here we go, drawn into all of my white lines and around the edge, and you'll do that for all of your shapes. You then take your block, take your leaf holding the paper down, you can tape it if that's easier. And just using the same pencil rubbing onto the back of your image and we should have a shape. So I'll carry on and do that for all of my shapes and I will see you shortly. 9. Making your lines easier to see: Now it's time to outline our shapes. And I've just grabbed my Sharpie and I'm going to go around each of the shapes all over the pencil lines that we just created. It's going to make it so much easier to see. When it comes time to carving, I do all my motives. This leaf shape is one of the best leaves that you can practice when you first start carving. It's got some rounded edges, it's got some straight edges. And it really is a good place to start when you're just beginning, just go around each of the edges, draw around your stem. When I first started printmaking, I would cut all of my stems of. Now, if you wanted to make your mushroom into two separate mushrooms, you could draw your first one in and then move this one over a bit. In that way you can have two separate mushrooms. I've joined mine together. You don't have to you, do you? Now, for the star of the show, you could get yourself a Sharpie that's a little bit smaller than the one I have. I'm going to pay particular attention to the length and direction of his spine because they are all of the things that make him, I want to make sure that I get in properly because that's the look I'm going for. You may be going for a different look. And you can change it up, you can make a little one. You don't have to have him looking the same as mine. And I want to pay particular attention to these ones down here because that told us that that was underneath of his body and there we have him. You can tweak him later on. You can add more. It's just to give me an idea of where I'm going to carve in the direction of his spines. 10. Cutting apart your stamps: Welcome back. Time to grab out your craft knife and we are going to separate all of our stamps. I've just got a basic craft knife. If you've got a bigger one, use that you're cutting in between each of your stamps and making sure that you leave room in between each one. It's pretty easy to carve The corners can get a bit trick. The main thing is you're remembering to leave yourself some room between each stamp, in between each one. Making sure you don't accidentally cut the one next to it is sometimes it can be a bit tricky. We've got a beautiful, big piece here, we'll save this piece, and we will practice our lines on this piece so that we can get to know our carving tools. Try and save as much of the material as you can. If you can cut close like this to the stamp, do that because then you've got another piece to use for something else. Some little leaves or a flower, some berries stem. You really are just trying to remove any excess. It's just going to make it much easier. I'll carry on and I will do the rest of my cutting, and I'll see you in the next video. 11. Tip - staining your stamps: Before we go ahead and carve, I want you to grab if you have an archival ink pad. This is going to make your life so much easier. When we are carving our steps, we're going to take our leaf. We're just going to apply a little bit of ink on it. Nothing fancy, doesn't have to be perfect, and it also doesn't have to be even. And then we're going to wipe it off, and you can see some of that black mark coming off already. The reason we are doing this is because now when it comes time to carving, we can see a bit more clearly. I'm just going to go ahead and do all of these with my stamp. Again, it doesn't have to be even. I'm just changing the color. Putting a stain on the back of, on the front of the stands so it's easier to see. When you carve the black line, you're going to get the paint coming through, which is going to contrast against the blue stain that we're putting on. And see how that Sharpe stays on. It really is good for this particular purpose. You can also see how inky get. 12. Get to know your carving tools: Welcome back. Now that we've stained all of our stamps and cut off any excess, let's get to know our carving tools. It's really important that you practice with your tools before you start carving your stamps. It's really important to look at your stamps and see what line you have to carve. We've got our leftover pieces from our blocks. I've got my Sharpie. I'm going to take a look at my blocks and decide what I need to practice on. It's a good way of getting to know your tools and how they behave, how you need to hold them like anything new. If the more you practice, the better you become, the more confident you become with your tools. Looking at our stamps, we've got our leaf. I'm just going to draw on my practice bits which are stained, that's got some wavy lines. I want to practice those. I know that I want to practice those because they're always more challenging then a straight line. I'll draw some straight lines because we've got straight lines in our hedgehog, underneath the body. We've also got the spine. I want to practice those as well. The other thing I think I'd like to practice is these little circles for our mushroom caps. I'm going to draw some of those as well. How am I going to do them? Which tool is right and which size tool? If you've bought that cat with all of the tips, now's your opportunity to grab those out and play. I know I want to practice. I also probably want to practice doing some long straight lines. I might want to practice maybe the acorn cap, it's got some little tiny dots. How are we going to do that? Which is the right tool to do that. I don't need that one. I'll get rid of that. They are the lines that I want to practice now. I've drawn them up and I encourage you to do the same. Okay. I've got some of the tools beside me. I've got my scrap piece here and I've drawn my line. I'm going to practice and see what I get to start with. I'll use this tool here, which is the one we talked about earlier. This is my V shaped tool. Let's give it a go. I'll start with my line. I've got my tool finger on there for my control. And that's sitting in there. I'm going to press down. I'm coming up slightly. I'm coming up to like a 45 if you like. I'm just pressing then I'm slightly lifting up to finish at the end, up a little bit. Engage the tool, keep pressing forward, lift up at the end. That staining the block makes it so much easier. Up a little bit. With the small ones, we're going to have to just take our time with it. You're pressing and flicking up if you like, engaging the tool, going down a little bit and then pressing up at the end, pushing up at the end. A smaller one. We need to practice these lines for our. There you go. My favorites, which is the Swiss made tool. Again, I'm holding it in my hand like that and I'm using my finger to control it down a little bit. Pressing up, practice our small ones. Then we're going to do these curly lines. Wavy lines, I'm starting now, I'm going to turn the block around. You're turning the block slightly on your corners. It won't always be possible to turn your block. If it's a tight corner, it makes it so much harder and you have to stop. Just start in the same line that you were carving. Let's try that again. I'm not going to be able to turn, so I'm just going to lift off. I'm going to put the point of my tool into the piece that I've already carved. And you can feel it turning and you're carving away from yourself. Again, I couldn't make it. So I'm going to redo that. Just take your time. Let your hand get used to the tools and lifting up to finish. Let's try these lines here. Change tools again so that you can see one of those wooden ones. This one here, this one here is still a V shape, but it's a little bit wider. Let's see what it does, lift up. If it's a wider V, it's going to give you a wider line. You choose whatever your style might be. You might want a thinner one, which means you're looking for something a little bit thinner. This one's wider, it's going to give you a wider line, which might be nice for your leaf. And flicking out we've got some of these little circles for our mushroom, I thought I might try and use our half moon or crescent shaped tool for this. Let's see what we get. I'm going to go down a little bit, then I'm going to try and lift off. Look at that. That's perfect for our mushroom cap, the crescent shape and just off, starting up a little bit high and off, made a mess of that one. But that's okay because that's what the mushrooms, the spots on the mushrooms look like. Let's try again. That's why it's important to practice. Now let's go back to, these are our acorn, I might like to use that wider tool you use whatever tools you've got, just give them a go and see what you get. Just keep practicing until you get the result that you want, and then you know what you need to do when you come to carve your stance. I'm happy with that. Go ahead, grab a scrap piece out and practice. Practice. Practice until you feel comfortable using your tools. Learn how to dig in slightly. Learn how to lift off so that you can finish your line. What I will say is if you do get your V, it's about the angle. If you get it too high, you go up too high and then you try to carve, It won't move. So just be careful of that. It will not move and you're going to have to take it out and you're going to have a big hole in your rubber. And you can see there, it's just a mess. If you go too lightly, it's going to slip and you're not going to have any control practice those things get the depth right and it is a matter of just practicing and you'll feel it and you'll know that that's right. Give that a go. 13. Carving your stamps: It's time to carve, grab your stamps, grab your gauge and let's start with our line work. I recommend you start with either your maple leaf or your plain leaf, so that you get used to the lines first, and then do all of your other ones. After you've practiced these ones, I will grab my and we'll get started. The first thing I'm going to do is go round the edge of my stamp and you can go over the edge of these ones on the outside edge, because we're going to carve that away anyway. Turning the stamp to help you turning, coming back up always, wherever possible, carve away from yourself. So we're not going to make that one there. So I've just lifted it up and do not chop off your stem. When I first started, I had a habit of going across the bottom of the leaf and somehow always managed to chop off my stem. I'm using my arm and controlling the blade with my finger, and I'm also turning the step. You can have a leaf without any lines if you want, or you might decide to do a different pattern on your leaf or have none at all. Do you and embrace your creativity. Now I'm going to do the main veins and you can go over the edge, because we're going to carve that off. Anyway, when I'm starting on this in vein, I will get the bottom of that point of my tool and pop it into that line we've already carved. And it just sits there and you can feel it have a practice at that. And then you can push off from there and see how creates quite a nice line pushing off from there. Again, bottom of that tip into the line you've already carved. And if you went the other way and did a line and then tried to stop, you may not meet it. Or you might go over the line and create a mark here which you don't want. Push off from that bit there. I'm leave, little leaves are really great fillers for compositions. If you have some of your rubber leftover, I encourage you to create a whole lot of little leave, little fills, super useful in the style of art making. Often they will help you fix if something's not quite right in a piece or it's missing a little bit of something. If you've got some little tiny stamps or smaller stamps that can often fill in that weed space or whatever that might be. When you create your prints, your cards. Little flowers, little berries even. They're just little circles. It can really help just lift a pace. I really don't want to get my finger in the way it's going to go. 14. Trimming your stamps: It's time to trim up our stamps and make them look like stamps. For this, you'll need your crescent shaped tool that we spoke about earlier. All you're going to do is try and get this edge of the tool, this edge here, into the line that you've already carved on the outside. If I start here, you can see my tool is inside that line. I can see it because I can see the silver bit, the metal bit. All you're doing is following that line into the line and you can see it, you'll know that it's right. Because you can see it. It feels smooth. You're not fighting the material you can see. I've got a beautiful space around the edge of my stem. And I normally like to go around one more time, a bit further away from the line with the same toll. I'm just taking off any bits. Once you're at that stage, you take your knife, your craft knife, and then you can trim your stamp. You're cutting into the pink bit. Remember, don't cut too close because you want somewhere to hold onto your stamp. And if you follow the shape a bit more, it'll make it a little bit more accurate. When you come time to stand as well, that's it. You've got your first stamp, you'll notice that I left the pointy bits on the end because when we turn it over to stamp, I can see that that's a stem bit because I've given it a square edge and that's the other end of the leaf. When I'm printing like this, it's easier for me to see. I'll do that for the rest of my stamps. Just wanted to share with you about the mushroom in this middle bit because I've left me together, you actually need to with the U gauge, dig it out somewhat. You're trying to get that bit down away from this bit which is going to be a printing bit, just ensuring that it is lower than your printing bat. You could cut it out if you want to. This will be a stronger stamp if you leave it there. I just wanted to share that with you. The rest of the process is just as before. 15. Testing and checking your stamps: We've trimmed off any excess around the edges of our stamps. Now's the time to check to see if they're right. I've tested these ones earlier, and I've used my archival ink pad. And I'm just going to test my maple leaf just to make sure that everything is how I want it. Now's your chance to tidy them up. I'm just pressing the con I'm not too worried that it's not even at this stage. I just want to make sure those edges are done. Just so that I can see if there's any mark unwanted marks that I don't want pre getting a good coverage. But again, doesn't have to be even. I can already see that there are some marks. Let's turn it over. Pressing, make sure you press well around edges. Normally, there are unwanted marks there where you haven't quite carved away enough of the block. There we go. I do have some marks that I'd like to clear off. There's a few little ones around the edges of this stem. I want to tidy up that stem as well to my crescent shaped tool. You're just going around the edges, taking off any pieces that you don't want. And you can see it from your picture, the image that you've already stemmed. They will go round going to tidy at my stem another bit, not and come done. Let's test it again. The same process, pre sing, pre sing, Making sure you get those edges again, if that's the area that you wanted to tidy up. There you go. A lot of it has been removed. You'll do that for all of your stamps and I will see you in the next lesson. 16. Tip - Play on paper first: It's time really just to have fun and play with color. And that's what I'm going to do, my ink pads, I've got my scrap bit of paper cut out to my card size, and I've got lots of different inks surrounding me. I'll just place it on my paper and see where I might like it. I'm not sure if I want to leaf beside it. I could do some leaves coming down in the corner perhaps just to add a little bit of, there may be some down there. That's what I'm going to try. I'll normally just place my stamps on a piece of paper and see what I get. Play with my mushroom. And I put my maple leaf in the corner just because I wanted to see, is that a composition that I like? No, it wasn't really. Then I had to play with my smaller leaves and you can see I was going for a tree, didn't quite work out. Purpose of me showing you this is often you see these amazing images and you think, wow, that person's really clever or whatever that is. And then your self doubt kicks in. What I can say is, for me, the learning in the growth comes from the play. Then you discover what works, what doesn't work. You keep going until you get an image that you are happy with. This one, I didn't mind. That's my acorn. It's I played with the colors when I'm testing them on this basic paper. I'm not too fast about how I ink them up. It's just really whacking the color on so that you can get an indication of what it might look like. And then we'll take a bit more time when we actually do our cards. I didn't mind that composition. I thought that was quite cool. I think I might like a pot more color in it though. May not go for the brown. I might go for a darker green. Where that brown is through the play, you can have a look, you can even write notes on your scrap paper and so that you can tell yourself what you liked, what you didn't like. That first mushroom I did, color was all wrong, so I thought I'd lighten it up and I went for this rosy pink. That was that one. And then I thought, oh, there's still something missing from that composition. I ended up with this one here. It just needed remember, I spoke about this earlier. If you make some little stamps, they can really help your composition. They're only little, but they just add something to it. I got my mushroom stamp and then I've just placed three of those smaller leaves that we created into the composition. I'm really happy with that. I'm actually going to go with that. I think that's really cool. That is one that I'm going to keep and I'm going to recreate on my card. These are some more that I played with. I did have a little round stamp that I had carved, that added to this. I've done my leaves that were created and then I've put in the smaller leaf, it was missing something. Then I thought, I wonder if I should pop some little dots on to represent berries. Then I had to play with our bigger leaf. I tried to overlap some colors just to see what that might look like. Play the mushrooms and gold. While I really love the gold ink, I think for the mushrooms, the composition would have been better had I left it like that. But still, it's an option you could do, even the nose of the hedge over here peeking in with the mushrooms down there. In that action, I might still try that. Then I did the acorn. I actually quite like that one. 17. Hedgehog card: I have my cards, I have my envelopes. I have some paper underneath. When I print, sometimes I will go off the edge of my card. If I've got paper underneath, I'm not going to get ink on my table. I'm going to use one of my gotos, which is the diversifying because I really want you to hear and see how this in behaves. I'm just give myself a bit more room. Move it out the way. Nice raised ink bed. Here we go. You can see how good this inch is. By just that first initial lay down, it's sticky. And if you listen closely, you can actually hear the noise the stamp is even sticking to in up. I just with my stamp pad all over the head. Really sticky inch, great. And if you touch them and you touch the ink, you'll need to wipe your fingers. You can hear that. You can also see it if you hold your stamp up to the light or up close, you can actually see which areas might need more ink. This is my process for there. For a larger stamp, I'm just pressing, letting the stamp do the work. You don't need to press too hard, making sure I've got a really good even coverage. I'm not sure if you can see the light on that stem. And you'll be able to tell if it's not inked up properly because you'll see spots that are lighter than others. We'll get down scrap paper. The process will be exactly the same for when you do your card. I mean to line him up, press them down. Now, once you've put them down, you can't move him. If you move him, you're going to get a smudge. And like a second image, dancing fingertips with this process. You are pressing hard because this speed ball is really spongy. I can get my fingers and I call it the finger walk. I'm making sure that I go all over the step. Better to take your time with this than to rush it, otherwise, wasting your ink. Make sure his nose is done around the edges you press. If you're struggling with your fingers, you can use a Brayer or something like a heavy paper weight. You can even do this and that is like a gentle pressing, but with pressure stand up. If you Nato and use your upper body weight, and then you're lifting off really gently. Now the key is not to drop it, and there you have it. He's amazing. I love him. I've pinked my card up, doing exactly what I did just before. So that's my paper and that's my card. I'm thinking I might like to print a matching envelope for him, because I think he's really cute and I might just use part of his face. I'm going to take my envelope. I'm going to just ink up maybe this much of him, the beginning bit. You don't need to ink them all up because we're only going to do just as head. So go a bit further than you think you need to. That is so cute. I would love to get that in the mail. 18. Mushroom card: I'm going to recreate my mushroom because I really, really like how simple that was, this think I'm using. Again, I'm going to go for my favorite, the versifye clear, because it is a larger stamp, and for me it's stickier. But again, when we come to the leaves, I'll show you some other rinks, you can't decide what's right for you there. But I really, really liked this color, which is why stick with it. You'll notice that I'm holding right on the edge of the rubber, not on the stamp itself. So that's why it's important to leave yourself some room for your fingers to actually pick it up. I'm looking at my test piece here, pressing, making sure you don't move it. It's a good workout for your fingertips. Making sure you do the edges lifting off. Whoa, nearly lost it. It's interesting because this color ink has acted differently depending on the paper. That's another thing to keep in mind. Depending on the paper and the content of the paper, your colors may vary from paper to paper. This is our photocopy paper and this is our card stock. But I still really, really love that color. I think it's just a bit more muted than a bright red. Happy with that, I'm going to carry on. I'm just going to wipe that stamp. I'm not going to be using it again. I don't need to give it a pat with a dry paper tail. I'll just leave that there. Or a dry rag is actually better. What's this little guy here? Cover your ink pads. Otherwise they're going to dry out. Let's go. And when I was playing, I actually wrote down the name of the Yank, which is really helpful. That is the ranger sea grass. These ones you might hear a stick, they feel a bit harder when you, I'm just pressing, I'm going to do this three or four times with this little guy and I'm holding him. I'm looking where that point is because we created that point so that we could see where to place it. And that one is just to press. He's only little, so you don't need to spend too much time on him And press up pretty good. Do that again. And even he looks a bit brighter on this card stock as well. A card to make him all help. Oh, looking for my point. And it was what more? 19. Acorn Card: For my acorn card, I'm going to refer back to my playpiece. I really liked that composition going to change it somewhat. Change the color of the leaves from brown to another shade of green, which contrasts nicely with the lighter green. I'll do very little talking in this video. Just sit back, relax, enjoy the music, and enjoy my process for making this acorn card. I really look forward to seeing your acorn cards and seeing how creative you get in the compositions that you can come up with. 20. Maple Leaf and Large leaf Card : I thought for my leaf card I would use a couple of different greens. And my smaller stamp there, I'm going to ink up my stamp. You're not going to see this on camera very much, it just goes a slightly different color. I'm just pressing quite firmly. Pretty good. And I didn't press hard enough There you can see there's quite a faint mark. I missed it. That's okay. Will get better. It might take you a couple of goes to before you feel confident with the pressure and the inching. But for this look, it doesn't really matter because they're hand printed and it's block printing. Remember to have your wet wipes with you. You will get in, as you can say, stained. Very difficult to get out from under your nails as well. That's a better one. I'm starting to get a bit better as I go around the page. I think that's enough for the big one. It's going to wipe that extra ink off with my wet wipe. I'm going to fill in a little bit with my smaller one for your little stamp. Sometimes it's easier just to, if you can, if you've got the thicker rubber. Do this just the opposite way. I might like to just fill in pre, just some filler leaves. I'm happy with that. I might have one more turnatve though. Maybe I might need to look at changing my colors. But that is still a beautiful card. If you were to give that to someone, let's have a turn at this distress and see what that acts like. And we should get a vintage Ripe. The Distress Inc, because of its formula, is designed to give you a very distressed looking step. It's cool, you could even print up a whole lot of these maple leaves onto heavier weight card stock and cut them out and make a garland, if that's what it's called, something like that, bunting. Even though I'm pressing really firmly, the look it's going to give me is that vintage vibe. Pretty cool, though. I'm going to carry on and I'm going to create my final maple leaf card and my final green leaf card. 21. Thank you: Thank you so much for taking this class. I really hope that you learned a lot and were inspired to create your own set of beautiful greeting cards using the stamps that you created. I'm always inspired by other people's creations and I would love to see one of the cards that you've created. Please upload that into the project section. That would be amazing. I hope that you've played, that you've explored color and you've started a playbook in the meantime. Take care and happy printing.