How to make a maple leaf rubber stamp from an eraser

The book Making an Impression: Designing & Creating Artful Stamps is packed full of great ideas, designs and projects that feature the stamps you make. My favorite is the idea for stamping on vintage gum labels of which I happen to have a stash. Go figure. I recently got out some of my fall cookie cutters which included a maple leaf and I thought that a maple leaf image would make a cute rubber stamp.

 So I downloaded an image and sized it.

 Then I cut the image out of the paper. To transfer the image onto the eraser I used a silver Sharpie as my eraser is black.
 I just held the image over the eraser and drew out from the paper onto the eraser.

I trimmed the eraser down to a smaller square around the maple leaf.
Then I simply cut along the shape always working from the inside drawing my cut lines out toward the edge.
Then I cut the eraser depth off of the outside area.

To stamp my images I used a red Brush tip Sharpie. Worked like a charm to give me a vibrant impression that matched the red of the gum labels.


More about the book from the publisher Lark Crafts:

  Making an Impression: Designing & Creating Artful Stamps
by
Geninne Zlatkis

"Popular illustrator and stamper Geninne Zlatkis has a passion for nature and color that distinguishes her work. These 20 beautiful projects--including cards, an embellished journal and tote, and decorative wall pieces--provide the keys to Geninne's creative process and image-making process. In addition to technique-specific primers with step-by-step photos of the essentials, Making an Impression includes 50 motifs showcasing Geninne's signature designs that crafters can copy and use for image transfers, stamp designs, and collages.

Geninne Zlatkis is an illustrator (etsy.com/shop/Geninne) and blogger (geninne.com). She uses a wide variety of techniques (painting, collage, writing, stamping, and more) in her whimsical work. Her illustrated prints and licensed designs have been available through Urban Outfitters, and her designs are featured on an organic cotton fabric line with Cloud 9 Fabrics and a pocket planner from Galison. Geninne's hand-carved stamped-cards project was included in Craft Hope (Lark Fall 2010). She lives outside of Mexico City in Querataro, Mexico."