carving it up.

after another round of hair pulling and frustration over moo UK cards ** i was trying to work out ways i could get my business cards and swing tags/labels printed and came up with the bright idea of getting stamps made !!

long story short i decided to carve the fronts myself and found an incredible australian company to do the text stamps for the back.

seriously the people over at think it ink it are amazing. i ordered on a thursday morning thinking i'd have it the next week. they had it finished and in the post THE SAME DAY and it arrived bright and early the next morning ready to go !!

all you need to make your own stamps are carving tools -i got mine here and a rubber stamp block -from here  the block was so big i've been able to cut it into several smaller pieces.

a few tips i learned along the way:

• the red tool (pictured above) is weird and i'm never going to work out how to use it properly LOL
• remember you have to draw out the stamp in reverse (backwards) from the way you want it to look when finished.
• sometimes several small cuts are better than one big one
• to check how your stamp is going ink it up and try it out. this makes it easier to find any flaws that need to be carved away.
• for waterproof long lasting inks you'll need to buy solvent or pigment based ink.
• if you use solvent or pigment inks you need special stamp cleaning fluid to clean them.
• ALWAYS keep you fingers out of the way !!! only 1 minor (and very tiny) cut but it was my own stupid fault for moving my finger in front of the tool.

** and yeah i've heard that moo UK lets people know they've changed their printing format so you must have done it wrong but here's the kicker -i used THEIR predesigned cards- not my own designs and i was still getting miserable results.

if you're having problems with moo UK then try out moo US. the printing is great but it's more expensive and a long wait to get them here to Oz.