Thanks to ImpressArt for sponsoring today’s tutorial and giveaway!
Friends, you know that although I love making all different types of craft projects, there’s a special place in my heart for jewelry making. Maybe it’s because I love fashion and actually wearing jewelry so much that the making of it is just extra-fun. Whatever the reason, as soon as my good friend Jess {who was my travel buddy in NYC} taught me the basics of beading two years ago, I was instantly hooked. So, for her birthday, I thought it was only fitting to make her a special piece since she started this whole obsession in the first place! This week for Fashion Friday, I decided to show you how I made it!
The necklace I made is a combination of beading and metal stamping, and for today’s post, I wanted to give you a basic tutorial for how to get started with stamping if you’ve never tried it before. It’s one of my favorite techniques because you can completely personalize a necklace, bracelet, keychain, or whatever else you have in mind by adding names, dates, phrases, images, or pretty much anything you want.
First, let’s talk about what you need. My materials were provided by ImpressArt, and they’re going to give one of you lucky duckies the same things they sent me, so keep on reading!
You’ll need:
– a steel stamping block
– a hammer
– metal stamps {an alphabet set is great to start with, then you can also get image stamps to add to your collection}
– stamping blanks
– tape
The first step is to place your steel stamping block on a solid surface. You can use a non carpeted floor, a countertop, or a very solid table. The rubber feet on the bottom of the block will protect the surface underneath from any damage caused by the force you’re using as you stamp.
Once you’ve picked a good spot, select your stamping blank and tape it to your block. This will prevent the blank from moving while you’re trying to stamp. For this necklace, I chose a long, thin rectangular blank, but they’re also available in circles, squares, hearts, and other shapes. My new absolute-favorite kind of blank to use is ImpressArt’s Soft Strike line. This one is made of pewter, and it’s amazing how easy it is to get a clear, deep impression with just one tap of the hammer. They’re the easiest blanks to stamp on that I’ve ever tried {and believe me, I’ve tried a LOT of different shapes, brands, and materials}. These are going to be my go-to blanks from now on because of the quality and how easy they are to use.
Next, you need to decide what word{s} you want to use and pull the necessary alphabet stamps out. I like to arrange mine in the order I’m going to use them. One thing I really like about these stamps is that you can see on the side of them what letter each stamp is, which is much easier than trying to figure it out by looking at the tiny backwards image on the top. I chose to write “Be Still,” as in, He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10, which I hope will serve as a reminder for Jess just to trust when she’s tempted to worry.
Now for the fun part! You’ll grip the stamp in your non-dominant hand with the letter and brand name facing you {a good way to instantly know you’ve got your letter right side up}. Then, you use the hammer in your dominant hand to give one firm tap with a good bit of force. If it’s your first time stamping, you may want to practice on a less expensive aluminum blank first just to play around and get a feel for how hard you need to hit to get the kind of impression you want.
It’s always a good idea to count out how many letters and spaces you’re going to use, then begin with the center letter and work outward to each side. That ensures that your phrase will be where you want it. Also, if you have a larger blank, it’s great to use a piece of tape as a straight edge for lining up your stamps so that they’re all even. Unfortunately, that didn’t work with this particular size of blank, so a few of my letters aren’t perfectly aligned…but the truth is, I always feel like slight imperfections add to the handmade feel of a piece; it reminds people that you created it yourself instead of it being stamped by a machine somewhere. When my words were finished, I added an anchor to the bottom of the blank.
The design stamps are slightly trickier to use because the metal isn’t raised up quite as much as it is on the alphabet stamps, but with the Soft Strike stamping blanks, a few taps with decent force made a nice clear picture. I had WAY more success with this than I’ve had with any design stamps I’ve tried to use in the past. Usually, it’s a disaster when I attempt to add a design, but this worked really well.
To make the piece easy to read from a distance, I like to give it an oxidized look in a really simple way. All I do is use a black permanent marker and color over the whole design, making a special effort to get the ink down in the crevices.
Then, I wipe the surface with a cotton ball lightly dipped in rubbing alcohol. All the excess marker comes right off, but what’s down in the crevices remains! Easy peasy! Here, you can see that while I had my supplies out, I made a little something for myself too…I loooove that little sign language, “I love you” hand; how sweet is that?!
That’s all there is to it, friends! Tape, stamp, color, clean, and you’re done! To jazz up the necklace a little for my bead-loving friend, I put a pretty blue crystal bead {gifted by Wholeport.com} and a pearl on head pins, wire wrapped them, and added them to a jump ring. I put a separate jump ring on the stamped tag, then slid both onto a ball chain. Ta-da!
What do you think? Will she like her birthday gift? And more importantly, would you love to give metal stamping a try? It’s really easier than you think, and I can’t tell you how fabulous it is to be able to whip a personalized gift in no time! Moms, grandmas, friends…everyone loves this stuff! I’ve even made keychains for men. Rings, bracelets, necklaces…the sky’s the limit!
ImpressArt is offering one lucky US reader a kit with everything you needed to get started with this fun new hobby. It will contain:
a selection of Soft Strike pewter blanks, a mini hammer, mini bench block, stamp straight tape and an alphabet stamp set!
Rafflecopter will walk you through the entry process; good luck!
Hugs & Glitter,
Diana Lopez says
July 20, 2016 at 2:06 PMBeen hesitant to start but will start today. Thank you for the tutorial.
dancers4life says
July 20, 2016 at 7:37 PMMy pleasure! You’re gonna love it!
Lorrie says
May 10, 2017 at 7:26 PMI’d like to do a stamping project to make the word “abide” as in the Vine, for our next year’s women’s retreat. I don’t have any of the supplies, I’m wondering if you could give me a ballpark figure as to how much you think it might cost me. We have about 300 women come to our retreat, and I’ll be on my own as far as the cost goes. I need to know if it’s feasible for me to do. I’d like to get the heart shaped metal for it, or round, I would probably add a few beads and a cute clasp to make it a key chain. Thanks for your help! I love your jewelry!!!