Have you ever wanted to make a rubber stamp from a digital image or text? It’s easy to mimic the look of a rubber stamp using your inkjet printer. Simply print your image or text onto a smooth, non-absorbent paper and transfer onto a receiving surface while the ink is still wet. This method has a variety of uses but works especially well for creating the look of rubber stamps and allows you to bring all of those cool digital brushes and fonts into your scrapbooking, collage or journaling work. Here’s how I made mine:
Materials:
Inkjet printer
Surface to transfer onto – smooth, absorbent surfaces such as art paper, cardstock, smooth watercolor paper and smooth, unfinished wood work best. **Also, printer ink is transparent so it will not show up well on dark surfaces.
Paper palettes – These can be found in the art supply section of the craft store. They are used to mix paint on and have a plastic-coated side. It is basically the same thing as freezer paper but it is thinner and comes in sheet form, so it doesn’t curl like freezer paper. Also, they do not come in standard sizes. So you will need buy the 9 x 12 size and trim them down to letter-size.
OR
Copier Transparencies – Not the inkjet kind, but the less expensive kind that does not have coating and is smooth on both sides.
Instructions:
First, print your image (in reverse) at the size and color you want it to be onto your paper palette or copier transparency. **The ink is transparent so it will mix with the color of your receiving paper.
Then, place the printed image face-down onto your receiving paper. **Work quickly to keep ink from drying too much.
Rub the back of your image using your hands or a brayer. Hold the paper still with one hand to keep if from shifting and blurring your image.
Lift the print to reveal your transfer. ** Note that the blue-green ink is transparent agaisnt the pink paper creating a muted purple color.
**Troubleshooting:
- You may find that your printer wheels drag through the ink on non-absorbent papers like these. ( I have not had that problem with my Epson r200). If that’s the case you can google search on how to lift the pizza wheels on your printer to prevent dragging. Although, this will void the warranty on your printer. I followed these instructions to lift the pizza wheels on my 2200 and it has worked fine while printing on all surfaces.
- Paper palettes can sometimes buckle when feeding through an inkjet printer. I place a piece of masking tape across the feeding end to help stabilize it.
- Copier transparencies can be re-used but do tend to stain over time.
Here is a layout that I created using these beautiful Boho Flourish frame brushes from Little Dreamers Designs. Or you can download my frame brush which was very easy to make and I will cover in my next tutorial.
Wowww! This looks super-fun. I can’t wait to try it out! Thanks for the tutorial.
Excellent! Thanks.
Yet another fantastic crafty tutorial! Thanks for sharing your brilliance — I will definitely be trying this!
I really hope I can get this to work, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to do image transfers forever! Thank you for this. Your final art piece is breathtaking and my creative ideas are bubbling!
Thanks for your comments, everyone. Good luck Sacred Suzie. I know transfers can be frustrating as all printers work a bit differently.
De-lurking to say thanks for posting this! This will work great for linoleum cuts, as well.
Recycle tip: You can also use the slick backing sheets of Avery or other such letter-size labels when you’ve used up all the labels. The plain paper back helps feed it through your inkjet printer without the need for masking tape. Print on the slick coated side.
Thanks for the tips Angela and Carrie. I hadn’t thought to use these for transferring my design onto linoleum and Angela thanks for posting I love your site and your transfers!
I can’t wait to try this! Thank you thank you!
That was fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing your creative juice.
Thanks for your creative tips!
I love this technique and will have to try it
thanks
Hey! I tried this and the ink was gloppy (it looked like little dots or bubbles) on the transparency so the image was very blurry (common?) and then if there was any black in the picture, it ran like crazy once I tried to transfer the image to paper. Any suggestions? I have to say I tried it with photos–is it better with graphic images? i really want to try this with photos! Thanks for any suggestions!
Melissa, Results can vary depending on the type of printer you are using, printer settings, ink, what you are transferring to etc. Because there are so many variables it’s best to experiment. For photos, I recommend transferring to watercolor paper and then you can use a soft brush with water to go over the image. It helps blend the image a little but it does soften and blur it a bit. Finally, If you’re really looking for professional results I recommend doing the research and finding a transfer film or how to make your own transfer film. However, it will only produce results that look essentially like an inkjet print on paper and I have to wonder why you wouldn’t just print directly onto the paper? Best, Amy
Thank you, you have great tutorials on your blog.
Hiya. This seems like a great way to accomplish a long-standing project of mine; truth-or-dare Jenga. I’ve been wracking my brain for a way to put the text on the blocks. was considering gutting a typewriter and just typing out the questions, but this would be FAR easier.
Do you have an idea of how well text would transfer to a hardwood block?
Cheers,
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
If the wood is unfinished and smoothly sanded it should transfer fine. I’m not sure how well it stay. Your safest bet would be to use clear stickers but I’m sure you have thought of that.
Heya. I’ve been trying it on some pine, and it seems to work pretty well. Less ink seems to be better, as it spreads during the transfer, since the wood isn’t very absorbent.
Jenga blocks are oak, though, so we’ll see how that works. There’s significant bleeding anywhere there’s substantial grain, but i don’t want to sand down each block; they’re already pretty smooth anyway. We’ll see.
I’ve considered clear stickers but I’m convinced that they’ll alter the frictional coefficients of the blocks, and since Jenga is a game that relies heavily on friction, i didn’t want to screw it up. Suppose for instance the labels stick together slightly; the game would be impossible to play.
but ink is very thin and shouldn’t alter anything much. I’ve tried sanding my test pieces and it takes some dedicated elbow grease to fade the ink so i’m not too worried about permanence. I’ll update you once i’ve more progress if you’d like.
Cheers!
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I loved it and I tried it on just normal paper.It did work only for design.There is any way to use Letter and numbers?I tried to print out with my design a number and letters it did not work and showing the opposite side.If there is a way please let m know on my email.
Just have to reverse the text when you print it out. Usually there is a mirror option.
Thanks dude, that’s really nice info, thankyou.