Happy Monday! Hope you had a relaxing weekend. Last week many of you took my poll and let me know what you were interested in reading about here, on Life in Sketch. Much of the feedback revolved around Do It Yourself ideas. I am going to share DIYs I find around the web with you as well as things I create myself. Each month I will teach you how to create something I have tried out myself. I hope you enjoy, and as always, I’d love to hear your feedback!
Last week I shared my Mother’s Day Gift Guide with you. Regardless of what you’d bought, it’s time to wrap those bad boys. You only have a week left! This weekend I attempted to hand stamp my own gift wrap. You can purchase stamps or make your own. There are tons of instructional guides online on how to make your own stamps at home. Recently I made one out of an old rubber eraser. For today’s purpose, I used stamps I purchased at Casey Rubber Stamps in the East Village. It’s one of my favorite stamp shops.
What you will need:
- Paper, you can use any paper you have lying around the house. I used brown craft paper, and 8.5×11 printer paper
- Stamps
- Craft paint
- Paint brushes
- Cutting mat or similar, so you don’t make a mess on your table
- Scissors
- Ruler (optional)
- Tape (to tape wrap your gift!)
1. I first taped my paper onto the mat, so it didn’t slip and slide all over the place. Don’t be concerned about not being able to stamp all the edges. The edges will be covered up once you wrap the gift. The center is most important here.
2. Apply a small amount of paint to the stamp using your brush. I stamped a few times on a scrap paper to check the amount of paint I was applying was not too much or too little. You don’t want a huge glob on the wrapping paper!
3. Stamp away! I reapplied the paint every other application but if you want a more even look, I recommend reapplying every time you use the stamp. I wasn’t too concerned about my pattern being in a straight line. I tried the best I could but didn’t use a guideline. if you have a very linear pattern you should lightly draw a few guidelines using a ruler.
4. Once your ink is dry, wrap your gift! I used acrylic craft paint and the ink was dry in just a few minutes.
If you try this out, I’d love to see the results! Please leave a link to your picture in the comments, or tweet the picture to me.
