Stamps

My friend Jessica makes stamps.
She makes lots of stamps.
I recently asked her to show me how she does it.
You'll need some smooth clay, paper, pencils, scissors, and some tools to carve with. The clay should be smooth like porcelain if you want to have crisp details.
Make some stamp blanks a little bigger than you need the final product to be and let them dry.
Draw your design on paper(computer) and cut it out or just draw right on the clay once it's dry.
Collect some tools to scrape/carve your design.

Now decide if this stamp is going to leave a raised design or an impressed design.
For an impressed design, carve away the clay that surrounds your image. For a raised design, do the opposite. The stamp pictured is for an impressed oak leaf that I plan to use in a variety of ways but mostly where handles attach to pots.

Give it a try.
You should see the cute little owl Jessica made when she showed me how to do this.