Note to all stamp-making hopefuls: Flip your image! Think: mirror.

Click to read about my first stamp-making “don’t”!

I had to make a large stamp for my wedding invitations earlier this year, which consisted of only 6 invitations. We had a teeny wedding with only parents and siblings, so that made the whole handmade-wedding thing very stress-free.?????????We decided to give our invitation some depth with heat embossing, so we designed the face of a flat card with images and text in Illustrator, then took it to be laser cut where my husband works. We spent hours in the basement of his building next to the beloved laser cutter, so excited to be making a super professional stamp to make the embossing easier, for the pleasure of only a few select eyes. Most laser cutters have to do the cutting in a series of cuts, slowly cutting down to your desired depth. When the stamp was finally done, we rushed home and inked it up, slapped it on our pre-cut cards from Paper Source, and stood back in awe at our creation. We couldn’t read a word it said. We’d forgotten to flip the image.

Luckily we are crafty and decided to stamp and emboss on clear vellum, flipped it over and attached it to our cards with handmade photo corners. Hooray for being resourceful!