Making our own stamps

Hello again crafters, if you know me at all you'll know that I am slightly addicted to stamps, well ok then very addicted to stamps. I have so many it's ridiculous but I love each and every one of them and couldn't bear to part with a single one.

 

As you may know Tom is the boss, he does all the driving and deliveries, does the adding up and signs all the necessary paperwork. I get to do all the fun stuff like designing, making, buying stock and chatting to all our lovely customers (a.k.a. Downland Crafters) online.

 

We both had the same vision for how we wanted Downland Crafts to be when we started, nearly six years ago now, which was to be able to provide affordable card making, paper craft and jewellery making supplies alongside our own handmade cards, wedding stationery and jewellery, which are still a big part of our daily lives and business. As well providing those things my ultimate dream was always to one day have my very own stamp range and to my delight last year I did just that when we launched DC's very first photopolymer sets. I can't tell you how excited I was! 

 

The artwork for the stamps came together fairly easily, especially as I had in mind the essence of what I wanted them to be like, but it still took quite a while to finalise the designs, organise packaging and get them made. After longer than you might imagine I finally had 8 x A6 stamp sets to unveil. That's when I got really nervous. What if you didn't like them? I needn't have worried, the comments, well wishes and support I got from my fellow crafters was fantastic, so much so that I decided to do it all again this year with brand new designs. I have so many more ideas for everyday and Christmas designs to come.

 

Practice makes perfect as they say and I learnt what did and didn't work so well with the first set of stamps, whilst they were all fantastic quality I was not entirely happy with the packaging side of things, so this year we've had a bit of a makeover. The stamps are still top quality clear photopolymer which means you can use them with any inks and they will last a lifetime as long as you look after them. Don't put them in sunlight, they don't like that and obviously keep them away from sharp objects which could damage them. Other than that you can pretty much do all the things you can do with rubber stamps with our photopolymer ones, with the added advantage that you can see through them making positioning that much easier.

 

As well as more A6 stamp sets we have introduced A7 packs this year containing either a single stamp or a couple of stamps, depending on the size. We launched them recently in our Facebook customer group Downland Crafters and the response was fabulous. Especially popular were our puppy stamps, this cute little chap has been named Downie and this particular stamp was described by the lovely Sarah as 'adorabubble'. I love that description! There are 3 different Downie stamps, plus all the bits to go with him, dog bowl, paw prints, bone, ball and more so you can make backgrounds to go with the main image.

 

Don't worry if you're not a dog person there are lots of other designs to choose from including a princess, monsters and even wedding words. If you want to see the whole range just pop over to our website or check out our Facebook page.

 

It's been lovely sharing a little bit of the behind the scenes stamp making process that goes on here at DC and I've hope you've enjoyed reading.

 

Until next time

Happy Crafting

Trish x