Blog

Creating Rubber Stamps With the Glowforge

self inking stamp

NEW POST - SELF INKING STAMPS

After reading this post you may want to check out more about creating your own Self-Inking Stamp. I would still suggest watching the video below and reviewing this post first so you can get a full picture of how and why I design and engrave my stamps the way I do. 

SELF-INKING STAMPS

Can you just make my stamp file for me?

Yes - I now offer this service on my Etsy

Stamp Conversion

GET THE PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS INSTEAD

Not trying to figure this out on your own? You can purchase my Photoshop actions to make it easy. The video to the left will walk you through the process of using them. 

Purchase the Photoshop Actions $2

Project Overview

So this whole thing started because I needed to print a gold seal on an envelope for my brother’s wedding invitations. I tried four different methods – laser toner foiling, stamping, heat transfer vinyl, and finally bronzing on letterpress. In the end the letterpress was the fastest and most consistent result so that’s what I went with, but in the process I learned a lot about creating stamps on the Glowforge.

If you’re wondering… “If you wanted a wax seal look why not just use a real wax seal?” I have an answer for you. 

One – it takes a LONG ASS TIME to do 200 of them, even if you’re using a glue gun wax and not an open flame with wax sticks. 

Two – modern mail sorting machines actually give off a lot of heat and smoosh the mail in rollers as it’s fed through: this can melt and smear your seal. 

Three – many post offices (if they see the seals on the outer envelope) will refuse the mail, return to sender, or charge you higher postage (.70 vs .55 for a regular card) for “hand sorting”. Essentially, you’ll need to pay more to have the item hand sorted so it doesn’t go through the hot machine or you’ll need to put the wax sealed envelope into a larger (and more expensive) outer envelope. Ultimately, people tear right into the envelopes when they get them, so a faux seal will give enough wow factor without affecting your mail’s ability to reach its destination.

 

If you use a wax seal you will need to purchase the .70 Non-Machineable stamps.

DESIGN

Designing the stamp was pretty straightforward but I’m going to give you some insight into the process. The first and most important thing you need to remember which is so, so easy to forget is that you need to reverse your design. I promise you, pretty much everyone has forgotten this at one time if they’ve ever made stamps, or printing plates (as I have).

Below you will see the same design twice with only one difference – in the first one I have more delicate typography. I wanted to see if the laser could get that sort of detail in a reverse engrave. (Spoiler, it did actually).

 

I made three different stamps using different settings. One thing to try and keep in mind is how you’re going to be engraving AWAY the negative space, so you want to make sure you reverse your image as I have here. I’m creating an offset path as well, so that I can save material by only engraving away what I need to.

 

This was my final file, I did end up going with the thicker type. The Yellow is the stamp itself ( I later learned you should make a wider margin around your design), and the teal/pink is the stamping block to be cut from 1/4″ birch plywood scrap.

CUTTING THE STAMP

When I went to engrave the stamp I was really surprised at how SLOW it was. 22 minutes for two stamps felt like forever considering how small they were. I’ll get to the settings in a second, there is a wide range of settings I’ve seen online and all of them pretty much work, but no matter what settings you use you’ll want to be aware that this product produces a good bit of ash – in fact it was hard to tell if it was working at all when you viewed it in the machine.

You can buy this laserable stamp rubber here:

 

Although this product produces ash- it really wasn’t as bad as some people claimed.

 

Yep, some ash will blow around, but it wasn’t a big deal.

 

Once my engrave was done I used my dollar store bristle brush to see how my engrave turned out. I was pleased to see it did indeed look like a stamp.

 

I used my mini vac to clean off the ash before removing it so it wouldn’t get everywhere.

 

After cutting the stamps out a quick wipe down with some alcohol got them ready for stamping.

CUTTING SETTINGS

You can cut the stamp with the Glowforge using the following settings:

SPEED: 130

POWER: FULL

ENGRAVING SETTINGS

I tried two different sets of settings they both worked to create functional stamps, but one engraved deeper (and took longer) and the other made a shallower impression.

 

ATTEMPT ONE: These settings worked fine, but the stamp ended up being slightly shallower than I wanted.

 

ATTEMPT TWO: This ended up being the better method. The stamp was sufficiently deep, even if it did take a few minutes more, at least it didn’t require a second pass as many people have been doing.

 

Here you can compare the depth between the two stamps. I’d generally lean towards a deeper impression as it will lower the risk of getting artifacts from the stamping backing.

My Suggested Settings Are:
Speed: 310 | Power: 93 | LPI:450 | One Pass

MOUNTING THE STAMP

Now comes the part I feel like no one talks about – how to mount the stamp. Mounting the stamp really helps you get the pressure needed to get a nice print. There are some great free files out there for stamping bases (like this one), but I decided to keep it simple and just make a very basic circle/block. It worked great and felt comfortable to work with.

For me I cut a simple stamping block from a scrap of 1/4″ Birch Plywood. With this stamp I tried using the Extra Sticky Lint Rollers from Scotch-Brite to remove my masking and I like them so far. I’ve never really had luck with the Gorilla Tape method.

The next thing you need to do is mount your stamp to some foam backing. I just used a scrap of craft foam I had around. This stuff is maybe slightly stiffer than your typical sheets, but I can’t say by how much. I would go with the firmest foam you can find, as that stiffness helps make the impression really even. If it’s too soft it’s easy to print the backing of the stamp as you press down.

I happened to have a sticker maker I picked up at the thrift store, so I just ran both my stamp and my foam through it. You could also use 3m double stick adhesive sheets or tape. When I was first testing the stamps I just used double sided tape and it was fine.

 

Running a scrap of craft from and the stamp through my Xyron sticker maker. The adhesive in this thing is SUPER sticky, so it works well.

 

Next step mount the stamp to the foam…

 

You’ll now have an item like this – your stamp is attached to the foam, and once you peel this backing you can stick it onto the block.

 

Using care, try and line up the stamp design with the printed design on the back of the block, this way you can use the engraved design on the top to line up your stamp when printing.

 

Using some small scissors (you could also do this before mounting the stamp which would have been smarter). I “beveled” the edge a little bit to try and reduce the stamp background/edges from picking up ink.

 

Ta-dah! A stamp.

TIPS & TRICKS

I refuse to call a tip a hack – they aren’t the same thing. Now that I’ve gotten than snobby thought out of the way, here is some advice for the stamping process.

1. Stamp on the right surface.
If you’re struggling to get an even impression, try stamping on a surface with more give. The foam mounting behind the stamp really helps with this, but in my case I used a silicone nail mat as well. You can overdo this however. I tried adding two layers of foam and it was too much, causing the stamp to smear as there was too much give when you pressed it down.

 

Remember earlier how I said you want to try and line up your stamp design with the engraved design? This is why, it helps you get a good lineup.

 

Good padding means a better, more even stamp (I’ll address the artifacts from the stamp edge in a minute)

NOT ENOUGH PADDING

 

Below you can see an early test using the back side of a stamp I already had laying around.

 

In my earlier tests where I just mounted the stamp straight to a block (with no foam) and you can see it’s harder to get an even impression.

TOO MUCH PADDING

 

If you have two much padding sometimes you’ll get smearing as the stamp shifts when you apply pressure and the padding gives way.

2. Give your stamp a wide negative space.
This may seem counter intuitive but even though it takes more time, make sure to engrave a wide margin around your stamp. The closer your stamp edge is to your design, the more likely it is to print. It’s sort of hard to explain, but because the edges are closer to the design, even minimal rocking when making the stamp can cause it to print. It has to do with how the pressure is distributed across the surface. It’s also harder not to get ink on the edges if they’re close to the design.

 

Here I’m comparing prints from the shallower stamp (left) with the deeper stamp (right). Having a deeper engraving and beveling the edges definitely helps, but it would still work better if my negative space went all the way to the edge of my stamp block.

 

Both the deep, and the shallow stamp sometimes produced these artifacts around the edge. Proper stamping technique, good stamp depth, and a wide margin of negative space really help to eliminate this problem.

3. Stamp with the right technique and ink
I found applying the ink to the stamp (vs applying the stamp to the ink pad) tended to work better. Also try and line up the stamp and press straight down instead of rocking back and forth. Dab your ink/stamp, do not rub the ink on as you will get poor coverage.

 

I really love these Encore little stamp pads. I use them to stamp brass wax seals (the real deal) before I press them into the wax to get an effect like this:

 

You can get this product here. If you cannot find Encore (it’s discontinued but still out there), try Delicata, another really dense nice stamping ink available on Amazon and elsewhere.

 

When I ink like this, I tend to get more ink on the backing, and I think it’s slower as you are continually flipping the stamp around to make sure it’s evenly inked.

FINAL RESULT

Ultimately, I was happy with how these turned out, and if you I use the deeper settings along with a wider margin around the design I think my stamps will turn our perfect next time.

 

This is the shallower stamp.

 

This is the deeper stamp

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DETAILS?

The technique I covered above worked great for the very solid stamp design I used, but what if your design has delicate lines of text? If you look at a typical stamp you’ll see the material ramps up to the face of the design. In platemaking we call this the shoulder. With more advanced lasers like those made by Trotec or Boss, there is a setting in the software interface that will add the shoulder to your design for you. With the Glowforge we will need to add it ourself.

 

See how on the face of this stamp the little dots have “hills” that hold them up?

If you use my settings above without adding the shoulder, you’ll end up with something like this.

 

See how delicate those swirls are? There is no way they’ll stand up to any sort of stamping.

 

Notice how the lines are easily warped or crushed with stamped.

What we want is something like this…

 

The delicate lines are now supported and will stand up to the pressure.

 

MUCH better. Crisp, sturdy impressions.

Ok enough talk. How do I get those lines? Simple – well at least it is if you have a vectorized or transparent design to work with. For my method you will need Photoshop. In either case, there is one important thing to note – your design must NOT have a background to start – this is why I copy and paste my design from Illustrator. Start with a transparent .png, or live trace your design in Illustrator. The basic steps are as follows:

1. Create a new Photoshop document with a black background – Set the Resolution to 96 – this matters because setting it any higher or lower means the jpegs will load at a larger or smaller size. If you plan to move these jpegs to Illustrator before uploading you can resize them there first, but might as well save yourself a step.

 

The black background will help you see what you’re doing

2. If you’re starting in Illustrator reflect your design now so you don’t forget later. It will also save you a step if you make your design white now.

3. Copy and paste your vectorized design into a Photoshop canvas. When you drop it in it will ask you how you wan to import the image. You can also just import (or place) a transparent .png file. If you copy and paste in a vector design it will ask you how you want to paste it. Choose either pixels or shape layer – in either case it will add it to your file as a transparent layer.

4. Scale your design as needed. If you did not copy and paste in a white design, you will need to make your design white. You can do this by choosing Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation (keyboard shortcut is CMD+U).

In the dialog box check the COLORIZE box and slide the Lightness slider to 100. This will turn your image layer completely white.

5. Double click your layer (on the right of it, next to the text, if you double click the text it’ll just cause you to re-name it) to bring up the Layer Style dialog box. Then input the following Outer Glow settings to start:

You may be wondering – why not just add the outer glow in Illustrator? It does have the functionality, however the settings cannot be adjusted as precisely and ultimately I was unable to get the result I wanted, so I moved to Photoshop.

 

Make sure to click Precise under technique and that you have the correct contour selected (see the diagonal triangle image in mine? That’s the one you want). You may have to adjust the Range and Size sliders a little bit to get it right but this is a good starting point.

6. From this stage you can simply save your file as a jpeg and go straight to the Glowforge, or you can erase out some of the background so that your engrave won’t take as long (no point wasting time engraving out all that negative space). Double click the black background layer to unlock it, then erase leaving a bit of a margin around the design.

 

Erase out the background to leave a margin

 

Save the file as a .jpeg for importing to the Glowforge

7. Finally import the design into the Glowforge UI. You can use the same settings as above, all you need to do is select VARY POWER in the grayscale drop down and set the min power to 0. The only disadvantage I’ve found with this technique is that when you import a jpeg it doesn’t come in at the original size, so you have to use the rules in the interface to make sure it is scaled as you want.

 

These are the settings I used for my stamp.

In the end the results should have a really nice shoulder that results in a crisp, clean stamp.

 

NAVIGATE POSTS

Glowforge Discount Code

Getting Started with the Glowforge

Glowforge Resources

If you have found this post helpful and would like to purchase a Glowforge of your own you can receive a discount using my referral link when you are ready to purchase:

CONCLUSIONS

Creating stamps with the Glowforge is pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it, the hardest part is getting the outer glow settings right. Here are some final tips:

  1. Don’t forget to reverse your stamp
  2. The more background you need to engrave away the longer the laser process will take
  3. One sheet of foam between the stamp and wood backer makes a huge difference in getting even crisp impressions
  4. Your best bet is to start with a clear .png or vector file. Doing the outer glow on a flat image will not work properly – the background needs to be removed so either livetrace your image first, or choose something that’s already in a .png format to start

MATERIALS

If you’d like to try your hand at rubber stamps, here are a few suggested materials. These are Amazon affiliate links, just FYI, but they’ll point you in the right direction!

Orange Rubber Stamp Sheet | 
This is the product that I used and it is laser safe. Not too expensive, and easy to work with. 

Scotch Tape Glider | This is shown in the video, but it’s one of my favorite and most useful tools ever. You can use it for so many things. I genuinely cannot do without it. 

Xyron Sticker Maker | Although I picked up my sticker maker at the thrift store you can find this smaller 5″ model on Amazon. Lots of great uses for this one as well. This is the 9″ model I have, but I don’t think they sell it new anymore, so replacement cartridges might get hard to find. 

Gray Rubber Stamp Sheet |
I’ve seen other forgers use this laser safe gray sheet as well, though I’m not sure if the settings differ. 

EZ Mount Foam Static Cling Stamp Backing | 
I did not use this, simply because I hadn’t thought of it and didn’t have it on hand. I used simple craft foam, but if you’re an avid stamper this stuff is the right density, and can be applied to acrylic stamping blocks using static electricity. I believe it is also sold in a double sided adhesive variety for permanent mounting, but I didn’t see it on Amazon. 

Scotch-brite Extra Sticky Lint Rollers | 
Many people feel these work easier/better than Gorilla Duct Tape and I’m inclined to agree so far.

Obligatory Glowforge Discount Code Plug

If you found this post helpful and you plan to buy a Glowforge you can use my code (https://glowforge.us/r/QHDONFXB) for a discount of $100 off the Basic, $250 of the Plus, or $500 of the Pro:

Get Glowforge Discount

Sign Up for Blog Posts Updates

And finally, if you’d like to be updated on posts like these in the future you can sign up for my email list. You will only receive an email if there is new content, and only once weekly in that case:

BONUS CONTENT

Even though I didn’t use my stamps for the actual invites, for anyone curious here they are! Illustrated, designed, and letterpress printed by me (with the exception of the envelope liner, I didn’t have time to paint one myself so I bought a file for that).

This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Camille July 2, 2019 Reply

    Wonderful tutorial! I appreciate all of the detail and “tips” you’ve included. (I don’t like “hack” either). I’m planning on creating a signature design stamp for my paintings, as my actual signature is distracting. I plan to start with your process. BTW, your wedding invitation design is gorgeous! I love the letterpress. Would love a tutorial on that too! 😉

    1. admin July 4, 2019 Reply

      Glad it was helpful! There are actually letterpress tutorials on my other blog at: PantheraPress.com/blog

  2. Rebekah December 14, 2019 Reply

    Thank you for such a detailed tutorial! I was able to follow your instructions exactly and had no issues creating a stamp with the shoulder. You’re really a life saver and please don’t stop sharing your knowledge!

  3. Samperi February 20, 2020 Reply

    Thank you, great tutorial.

  4. Dee June 25, 2020 Reply

    Wonderful! Was trying to add ramps in vector program, duh just use raster program! Thanks for knocking the sense back into me… that and “remember to reverse your image” 😮

  5. Florence Turnour October 28, 2020 Reply

    Thank you!

  6. Kim A. tolman March 25, 2021 Reply

    Thank you for sharing! I’m curious, did you have some flames when you cut/engraved the orange rubber? Thanks in advance! Kim

    1. admin March 26, 2021 Reply

      Not really, if you’re having flames I suggest giving the machine a thorough clean

  7. Heather May 20, 2021 Reply

    Hi Danielle! I loved both your post and the video. I have two questions I would love your feedback on

    Why not have your laser cutter do the final cutout of the stamp, rather than hand-cutting it? Could you add the foam backing, before cutting the stamp, and have it cut during the final cut out too?

    1. admin May 20, 2021 Reply

      You can certainly cut it with the glowforge – I thought my post had the settings, I’ll check. I just did it by hand with the earlier tests because I hadn’t drawn the cut outline in the file yet. You can also cut the foam backing or pre-apply it and cut them together. I’m working on a new stamp video post with a bunch of new stuff in it, so hopefully in the next couple weeks I’ll be showcasing some of what you’ve mentioned.

  8. Lisa September 23, 2021 Reply

    This was perfect. At first, I was like “shoulder? who wants a stamp of a shoulder?” LOL. This was a new term to me. But this whole tutorial was spot on for me and it worked perfect. Thank you!

  9. NB February 10, 2022 Reply

    Your tutorials are SO amazing! I’ve only had my GF for a week and have already managed to save so much time and heartache thanks to your thorough and excellent posts – my super complex wedding invite stamp (featuring shoulders) is currently one hour into a two hour print and already looks incredible. Thank you thank you and keep them coming!

  10. MakerBlock August 26, 2023 Reply

    Thank you for these settings. I used your Amazon link, bought that exact laser-able stamp rubber, and your exact settings, and they worked flawlessly on my Glowforge first try.

  11. Jae December 29, 2023 Reply

    This is the most helpful GF tutorial I’ve seen so far. Your effort and helpfulness is a blessing.

Leave a Reply