There's a First Time for Everything: Created my own Flourish Stamp

I bought a card making magazine the other day, and I love the designs featuring swirls and flourishes - they seem to be everywhere, from paper patterns, to rub-ons, to rubber stamps. This morning while leafing through the Sears catalogue, I found lovely graphic flourishes on clothing, shoes and bedding.

The rubber stamps that I was thinking about buying were $32.95 for the set (Baroque Motifs from Stampin' Up!) and I only really liked the one stamp of the six in the set. So I decided to combine my artistic talents and love of crafting and try making my own stamp before I shelled out the cash.

My husband's cousin Matt is a teacher and we met in Home Depot recently. Matt was carrying an armful of styrofoam insulation chunks and explained that they carve them in his grade 4 class to do block printing. I immediately realized that that technique could have application for artists and have been looking for a good project to try it out on.

First, I drew my swirl pattern. I used a design on bedding as my guide, though I made the design unique. I drew it quite large and then photocopied it in three smaller sizes before I found the size that seemed right.

I found that the carbon paper didn't leave an impression on the styrofoam. In the end I used the stylus to lightly impress around the outside edges of my design. I tried not to impress the design itself as I needed it to be raised for stamping.

Carving the styrofoam was a big messy. I like that the styrofoam is soft enough that I didn't have to apply a lot of pressure to the blade. However, I found it hard to leave the crisp edge I wanted, and not squash the lines of the design with my hand or the edge of the blade.
I used the Chizzel-It to smooth the edges of the design, and remove some of the more jagged bits. By this point I had realized that the softness of the styro would make a really crisp design impossible, and I was likely to end up with a distressed-look image.

First stamp - to the right a bit of excess styro picked up the ink and left a mark. Carved it off for the second impression below.

I like the finished stamp. I think I will try stamp making again soon - more flourishes in different sizes. But I'm going to prowl the hardware store and see if they have something equally carvable but slightly denser and firmer. I'm thinking about trying some kind of texture medium, painted on wood for another option.