stamping with children part 1

I like to involve my children in whatever creative project I'm working on. Not everything lends itself to each age, but carving stamps was perfect for all of us. I asked them to create a small picture that represented them or something important to them. My daughter made a mini self-portrait. My son, the comic book aficionado, drew his signature thumbs up that goes on the top of all of his hand-drawn comic strips.

I taught them how to use tracing paper to transfer their image to our carving block.

They both thought it was magic! I guess it is. How to? Trace your image onto tracing paper in pencil and then lay the traced side down onto your stamp block. Using the side of the lead gently scrape the pencil over the entire picture. Lift and viola! Carve.

My 10 year old son is able to do most of this on his own, but I helped since I wasn't trusting my current blocks (I've since gotten my new supplies!). My daughter watched as I carved. I had not anticipated the sweet feelings that surfaced when I was carving what had come out of their fingers... from their minds. Deep connecting. It's quite beautiful to carve your child's work. I hope you'll try it, too. To speed up the process to the final product, I did a simple outline of the picture. For my son, we later did one in relief, as well.

We ended up printing all morning. I spread out Kraft paper and white paper and we stamped away.

My daughter loved coloring the outlines of her self-portrait. We've be using this stamp to sign notes and letters... along with her written name. Mounting it on a wooden spool makes it easy to use.

Happy stamping!