Uncraftables: Stamp No. 1: Eraser Stamps

After hearing about eraser stamp crafting from Arashi ni Shiyagare, I got interested to make my own eraser stamps as well. I headed out to the bookstore to buy the largest erasers I could find the very next day, and got some craft knifes to carve out my designs.

I've done about a dozen or so designs now... and I'll be sharing them all (starting from the very first one!) on this blog.

Since it was an Arashi inspired art project, naturally, I started off with Arashi related designs.

For my very first attempt, I downloaded Arashi logos, flipped them over, resized them to fit my erasers (which are really small), and then printed and cut the pattern out. I sort of traced the outline over the eraser, but ending up drawing much of it free hand.

Here's the erasers I got from Popular bookstore. There's no big erasers around... this is like... one of the biggest, and it's cheap too.

Flag erasers! Nostalgic huh? We used to play with these a lot as a kid. Well in Singapore that is. We'd use this as some sort of token. Each player has one eraser, the eraser is placed on a table/flat surface. Each player then takes turn pushing the eraser with just one finger. The goal is to stack your eraser on top of the other player's. The person whose eraser is on top wins (sometimes we bet erasers). Guess this isn't played elsewhere huh? This is the closest I could find on Amazon.

Just that these ones are worst in quality... esp the print quality... red is actually pink color -.-

But well, at 48 erasers in a box for just over 3 SGD, it's the cheapest erasers I could find. It's not at all that big too. 2.5 cm by 3 cm. As such, I've had a little problem with the small size. Then again, I probably can't draw well if it's too big too. Problem with craving stamps though, is that you can't make the designs too small/intricate because it won't show up on the stamped design. Coupled with the fact that these erasers are pretty soft... Yeah. It's not that easy....

Anyway. I felt kinda cheated after I opened the box of erasers.... Because...

There are so many repeats!!! I thought I'd get 48 different erasers... Well ok, at least not so many Singapore flags!

I wasn't kidding when I said there was a lot. (And see how pink the printing is? After staring at these for so long, I'm starting to think that the Singapore flag is PINK and white already....)

Fun fact about that particular box of erasers I got. There's no Malaysia flag in it. When it's made in Malaysia. (Yet there's a ton of Singapore flags.) Hmm....

Anyway, here's my very first carving!