I've used nwstamps.com -- Northwestern Stamps -- a couple of times and the
stamps have turned out quite nice, and they made and delivered them promptly. I
had them make a couple of signature stamps for me. I'm great at drawing, but
I just can't do sculpting -- I have like a learning disability when it comes
to thinking three-dimensionally -- so my carving is just awful, even with good
carving tools I just can't do it. There might be stamp stores around me that
do it, I've never called around to find out. Online is much easier for me --
I hate to get out and shop. But if you don't mind going out to shop, call
around to some of the rubber stamp stores in your area, or the scrapbooking
stores, and see if they offer custom stamp services.

Before you give up on carving tho, make sure you've got a good medium that
you're using -- I absolutely love Mastercarve by Staedtler -- I buy the thicker
size, the 3/4 inch. It advertises that it cuts like butter and it does. Plus
you'd really have to work at it to get it to crumble. And make sure you've
got a Speedball with a wide variety of their blades (and make sure that they're
extremely sharp -- new doesn't always mean extremely sharp -- sometimes they
sit unsold on the shelf and can go a little dull just sitting there -- and a
little dull can make a big difference), and a variety of exacto knife sizes,
and also for sure a #4 exacto knife blade, which is a much smaller, finer,
stencil cutting type blade.

I still go ahead and carve the stamps for the boxes I place -- but if I'm
putting the clues out there on the internet, like at LB.org, for folks who might
not know my lack of carving skill, I just always put it in my clues that folks
shouldn't expect much. :-) a "Finder Beware" kind of thing. :-)

But my two signature stamps were commercially made by Northwestern Stamps
from my own designs. They can also do "sheets" of stamps if you want to do your
own mounting. I thought they were fairly decent price-wise, but I didn't do
much of any comparative-price shopping at all. I went with them on a
recommendation I got from someone else that they liked the job they did.

As far as the journals go, I use whatever hits my fancy. I was in a Barnes &
Noble Bookstore near my home a few months back and found an interesting
unlined writing journal totally handmade and handbound and decorated by the
Nepalese, and that's what I'm currently using.

When I letterbox, I like to take photographs of the place also, and put the
stamp, the photos, and then write some about the adventure too, in the journal.
I generally don't carry the journal out with me when I go to find the box.
I buy different colours of card stock from a scrapbooking store, stamp on the
card stock, then bring it back home, trim it how I want it with a paper
trimmer, and glue it into the journal or use those glue dots, etc. My cameras, my
binoculars, my chocolate, water, my dogs, and oftentimes my horse, plus a
variety of supplies in case the box needs any sort of first aid, my stamp and
inkpads -- heck, those are enough already to take with me. :-) The poor book
would probably get ruined if I tossed it in with the rest of the mess.

Most of the boxes I find are out in forest preserves type places, and I
recently found a really nice scrapbook with various rough leaves on a rough cream
coloured cover at Archiver's, a chain scrapbooking store. That's what I'll use
next. Scrapbooking has gotten so popular that there are a lot of great
scrapbooks and designs for sale in the scrapbooking stores.

And then I often use some of the little scrapbooking "embellishments" that
they sell to decorate my pages with too.

I think scrapbooking and letterboxing go well together. Creativity-wise, you
can do as much or as little as you want nowadays with the letterboxing --
there's so much choice out there. Unfortunately, I never used to think much of
scrapbooking until I realized that it would be great to combine with the
letterboxing. I still haven't let anyone drag me to any "crops" yet :-) tho that
day may come.

PippiL


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I have tried and am just not a carver. I have a great design, but am
not sure where to take it to have it made into a stamp. Is it an on-
line business, a local thing? Where to go?

Thanks!
JBean


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