Making your own stamps or stickers

Artistamps
Stamps are miniature works of art that you can create using digital photographs or any other images you want to scan and manipulate. Use the resulting stickers on letters or in collages, scrapbooks, and altered books.

The example provided here is very basic. With just a little imagination, and some software to alter your photographs, you can do almost anything. Find inspiration for more complex projects in Nick Bantock's Griffin and Sabine series of books or by searching Google with the keyword "Artistamp."

Materials:
Photographs or scanned images
1 sheet of full page sticker paper
Colour inkjet printer
Stamp edge scissors or punch

Click here for instructions with images.

Making a Grid
The following instructions are specific to the word processing package "Microsoft WORD." If you have different software, simply follow along using the commands appropriate to your software.

In Microsoft WORD, click FILE, then PAGE SETUP. Set all four margins at 0.017in. Under ORIENTATION, select PORTRAIT. Click OK.

Click on VIEW, TOOLBARS, check the TABLES AND BORDERS and DRAWING OPTIONS. (When you hover over any icon, it will give you information about its function).

Click on TABLE, INSERT TABLE. Set the number of columns as 5 OR 6, and the number of rows as 6 OR 7 (depending on the sticker shape you desire). Click OK. Select FIXED COLUMN WIDTH. AUTO. Check OK. (You may end up losing a row or column, depending how things turn out looking at this size -- be flexible).

Place your cursor in the bottom right hand corner, left click your mouse, and pull the bottom line down to the bottom of the page. (You'll have one huge row and the others will be very narrow.)

Go back to the TABLES AND BORDERS toolbar and click on the graph icon (DISTRIBUTE ROWS EVENLY). Now Press CONTROL A (to SELECT ALL), select a LINE STYLE that is double rows, a LINE WEIGHT of 6 point and, on the square OUTSIDE BORDER, select ALL BORDERS. This will result in a nice grid of frames.