Homemade Elephant Stamp and Gift Paper

I eagerly made this homemade elephant stamp for the son of my very good friend but was pretty delayed in delivering it.  So to make amends, I added a little extra surprise on the side - homemade, elephant-stamped gift paper!

I made the gift paper out of mahjong paper - when I finally purchased it!  Amidst the school-time shopping rush, I braved the school supplies section of the bookstore to look for mahjong paper and with hubby's help, happily went home with the heavy pad with 40 sheets of potential gift paper.

Mahjong paper is perfect for making homemade gift paper as it's sold flat (not folded) so if you want to stamp an image away, you could just go at it, line of sight undeterred!  Plus, when it's used as gift paper, you don't have to worry about the visible creases.  Also, compared to kraft paper, it has a more ideal width at 33"x 33" and has a better shade of brown.   A bit of a downside though (which I don't mind actually) is that all sheets are sealed with padding adhesive on all sides (hubby says it's because after a game of mahjong, the topmost sheet is meant to be torn off).  I used a cutter to separate the first sheet of paper from the rest of the pad.

Here's a shot of the homemade elephant-stamped gift paper.

So cute, isn't it?!

I found it so nice that I hesitated to give it away for a moment!  Hahaha!  Shhhh...

I can't wait to make more homemade gift paper with the 39 remaining mahjong sheets! ; )  I'll definitely post the finished products when I get the time! = )

My First Handmade Stamps

I'm so happy!!!  I made my first homemade, handmade stamps!!!

The story behind these handmade stamps...

Last week, I made these notecards...

Pretty.  But I was already dreaming of having my own stamps made so I could use them on note cards and really call them my own.

Then I remembered that our friend Carla had mentioned that she made her own stamps.  Making my own stamps never occurred to me before. Out of curiosity, I researched online.  Thanks to pinterest and google, I found this blog post and this blog post.  The stamp-making video and eraser stamp tutorial were really helpful.  Both posts seemed easy to follow.  I got so excited and when I got the chance to go to the bookstore, I got myself the essential tools.

Today, I finally got to play with my new toys!  This is my first stamp:

A peppermint!  Peppermints are on my paperminties banners, if you hadn't noticed! ; )

 ...and it looked like this on paper.

My daughter watched me make my first stamp and she enjoyed trying it out as well.

Then, I got really excited and ended up making more.

They were really easy to make and quite addicting!  I'm glad I bought many erasers so I could make more.  I am seriously hooked.

I was not satisfied with the colors of the store-bought stamp pads so I followed the instructions on this post to make my own. 

Homemade Ink Pads

Now, I can make note cards with designs that really have my stamp on them.  Pun intended.

I will definitely post to show photos of the note cards when I've finally made some out of these handmade, homemade stamps!