Hand Made By Me Stamps

One of the most popular items I make are Hand Made By Me stamps.

Here is a stamp I made for a pair of socks I knitted.

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I have made them for people who sell clothing on Etsy, as well as for knitters and quilters. They are also very popular with woodworkers.

Worlds Largest Rubber Stamp

The World's Largest Rubber Stamp is located in downtown Cleveland.

You can read all about it at RoadSideAmerica which provides a funny listing of all kinds of large tourist traps.

Happy Birthday to Village Impressions

August was my eighth year selling stamps on the internet.

I now sell in a week as much as I did that first year.

I have sold stamps all over the World including Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and the United Kingdom.

I also have sold stamps into every State except Delaware, and every Province except for the Northwest Territories , Nunavut, and the Yukon Territory.

I keep waiting and looking for my first stampers to finish my customer map .

Stamps from Photos

I have spent a lot of time learning Photoshop tricks to make stamps from photos.
I start by scanning a photo into the computer unless someone sends me a high quality image by email.

Then  I increase the contrast, remove the background and touch up any problem areas.

In this case I zoomed in on the face and removed big brother (sorry).


The image must next be converted to pure black and white with a halftone filter (used to make newspaper images). Sometimes blemishes need to be removed and features enhanced. Not the case with my beautiful daughter!




Finally I can make a stamp from this converted image. The stamp is cut out and mounted on the clear block and then it is time to stamp away.


Most popular photo stamps are kids and pets, but any photo with good contrast works well.
A black dog on a dark leather couch or a white cat on snow would be really hard to make, but if I can't make it work, I'm the first to admit it. :)






This is truly a custom, one of a kind stamp!

The final product is such a pleasure to have and use.

Stamps for Clay, Pottery

I get quite a few orders for stamps to use for clay projects.

People have used them on pottery, Sculpey, Play Doh, Precious Metal Clay (PMC) jewelry, and tiles.

I make these stamps extra deeply etched so they leave a good deep impression.

They can be used with a block for flat surfaces or pressed by hand without a block to work around curved surfaces.

Another neat idea is to stamp on clay using slip as the "ink" (see this link)

There are quite a few interesting videos on YouTube to give you some more ideas for stamping on clay.

Family Stamp, Pet Stamp

Here we are on a family rubber stamp, as you can see, a typical happy family.

The kids are not so little now…..John is off to University in the Fall and Laura will be in Grade 11!

The family design was made by a lovely artist from the West Coast.

If you would like her to make up a family stamp for you, check out her website, or just contact me and I will work with her. http://www.figascloset.com/about_us.htm

Here is a stamp of Amy, my trusty sidekick. Amy is a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier.

Wheatens are a godsend for a family with many allergies, until we met Amy a dog was out of the question for us.


I make a lot of pet stamps, just send me your photo!

How I Became a Stamp Maker

My first blog entry will have to be about how I started this business.

My darling husband is an engineer and a great hobby starter, but a poor completer.

In 2001 he bought an expensive machine to make patterns for casting bronze plaques.

After several months of this machine sitting around, I asked him what it was really used for.

He said that people use it to make rubber stamps, which was apparently a big hobby.

After several hours searching the internet and looking at magazines I decided to use the thing to make stamps to at least pay for the machine, so I took it over.

Although it is supposed to be easy to make a stamp. it turns out there were lots of little tricks to learn.

Back in 2001, clear stamps were still a novelty, red rubber ruled the hobby.

One happy mistake and I discovered how to make the stamps self sticking. It was quite the thing to convince people to buy at first.....but of course now everyone has at least seen self sticking.
My first sale was from an ad in the back of a rubber stamp magazine , so you could say I started out in mail order. I even made a bunch of plaque patterns for a local foundry, which was the original intended use for the machine.

I made my first website with MS Publisher which came with my home computer. Although there was no cost, there were many hours of frustration, but believe me, if I can do it anyone can!

I went online for the first time December 2002, and the rest can be told in another blog.

BTW: Now it is 7 years later and DH still hasn’t made a bronze plaque !