Woodblock Printing

I need some business cards for this lil’ ol’ blog.

You know, somethin’ to hand out to strangers, and brag to my kids that Mom is super cool because she has her own business cards.

(And something I won’t cry about when I discover my three year old has colored all over the expensive versions I bought online.)

So… the goal is twofold. I want something simple, and I want something cheap.

First I picked up a couple of Artist Trading Card packs at Hobby Lobby.

They are $2 for 25 cards.

Nice! That’s without a coupon!

Next I printed out my blog name. You can type anything you want, but keep it simple since you are going to be cutting out the letters.

Take a pencil and shade over your text or image.

If you lay down your text and you can’t see it, trace it backwards in front of a window like I did below. Then you want to trace your letters while holding your paper down on a wood block used for carving.

This is actually pink rubber intended for printing. Hobby Lobby sells both rubber and wood for carving. It’s totally a preference kind of thing.

Your image will appear backwards.

Next comes the fun part!

Speedball sells carving tools in all kinds of sizes. I have been using these two for quite some time.

Start carving! Remember that your text or image remains, and everything else get’s cut away. Unless you want to reverse your image. Then you can just carve your text. I have done it both ways before, and both turn out cool.

Don’t worry about messing up. It’s like shaving your legs when you have taken a three month long winter hiatus.

You are bound to miss some spots.

Not that I do that.

When your stamp is done, it’s time to get your ink ready. I have used rubber stamp ink, craft paint, metallic paint… but I think artist acrylic paint works best. You can also buy ink that is intended for letterpress. It works fabulously, but is a bit pricey. Artist acrylic sells for just a few dollars a tube, and the color  selections are wonderful. Some woodblock printers also prefer an oil based paint. Again, it’s all about cost and preference.

To print your wood block stamp you want to first ink a brayer. If you don’t have a brayer, just use a cardboard toilet paper roll, or an old rolling pin.

Get a nice smooth coat of ink on your stamp.

Practice makes perfect when it comes to inking.

The left card has too much, right too little, and the middle is just right.

The fun thing about wood block carvings is you get to see all the pretty imperfections.

The acrylic paint also give the stamp a really nice texture when dry.

Love it!

I have about a hundred of these babies to finish up. I will be either writing or stamping my email address on the back. That’s if I keep my cards super simple. If you do a web search for my blog name you’ll probably find it, so I don’t worry about not having enough info on my cards.

I have made a ton of other stamps in past years so I will try to share some more ideas in the next week or two.

Let me know if you decide to try this, or if you have done this in the past, or if you are too busy watching the premiere of GCB on Hulu to do just about anything right now.

I’ll forgive you if that’s the case. It’s a pretty darn hilarious show.

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