Making My Mom a New Teacher Stamp

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My mom is a second-grade teacher in the Stafford County Public School System. She loves teaching, even though parents and some kids can be difficult. I've made her a stamp before with a Monarch butterfly that read "Loveday" above it. That used to be her last name, but last year, she remarried, and her last name changed to "Bowles." She uses the stamps for her classroom books, and to mark items in her class as hers. It prevents confusion, especially at the end of the school year when she has to pack. She requested I make her a new Bowles stamp a few weeks ago, and I'm ready to share the final result!


Though she only requested one, I decided to deliver two. The first, of course, is the Monarch butterfly. This image is different, however from the previous one because the name is displayed in the middle of the butterfly and not the top. It's much more elegant compared to the previous one (which was my first time seriously attempting lettering, by the way.)

The second one which she called the "bonus" stamp is the little gnomes. My mom LOVES gnomes. She collects them for each season and displays them throughout the house. She has so many great ones, but my favorite of hers is the beach ball gnome. I was initially worried that making her a gnome stamp with green would be too Christmas-y, which would be a big classroom no-no, so I decided after I began carving to make it purple, her favorite color. I'm honestly more impressed with the Gnome stamp than the Butterfly stamp because of how much more detail is included, but I'm still proud of them both.

I mounted both stamps on the 3/8" foam I ordered from stampeaz.com. I used orange and purple, for obvious reasons. It's always surprising how much firmer the stamps are when they are mounted.





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