Selfmade Stamps

onestly, I’ve never had a professional manicure. But last year I bought a UV light box like the ones used at nail studios —>

It belongs to the “Stampmaker Kit” by Teresa Collins and allows you to make your own stamps using sachets filled with UV polymer as you can see on these pics – my pictures turned out blurry.

My selfmade motif is an elefant floating up in the air, hanging on a balloon (in halftone printer look). I printed my design as a negative on a transparency, placed it on top of a sachet and “sandwiched” them together in a clamp. Then I put it in the UV light box for 3 minutes before I could cut the sachet open and wash the liquid polymer off in hot and soapy water. Poor elephant got his spine dislocated by my scrubbing, so I had to fix it by positioning it correctly and putting the stamp in the light box for some more minutes.

I cut around the balloon and the elephant, as you can see here. The stamps are transparent, but they have to be mounted onto an acrylic block or similar. Other than the usual clear stamps, these don’t have a sticky back.

In the stampmaker set, two sheets of cling foam were included. I mounted the elephant onto an acrylic block, and the balloon found its home on a leftover stamp handle.

The first impression you make with your selfmade stamps is always exciting – if something went wrong, you can hardly correct it. So I got my ink pad and …

It turned out great! The twine must be drawn by hand, so here’s what the final design looks like:

Nicey-nice!
Making your own stamps with this method has its flaws. Here in Germany, I’d have to order re-fills from the UK which isn’t very cheap. And you never have the guarantee that your design turns out exactly how you planned it.
But it’s lots of fun :)