Handcarved Stamp for Straight (gasp!) Text

So when I was watching Traci Bunker's video making of a journal page here:

http://tracibunkers.blogspot.com/2009/05/presenting-my-new-video-traci-bunkers.html

I noticed that she used a stamp with lines in her text blocks. I often worry about my text being straight. (why? It's my journal. But let's not get into the artist insecurity issue. That's not just a whole 'nother post; that's a whole 'nother blog.)

Since I really like the look of handcarved stamps I thought it would be cool to make my own stamp for this. So I cut a 4" x 5" piece off my carving material, measured lines 3/8" apart, and then just cut a bit to each side of the line. I wasn't concerned with perfect lines just as I wasn't too overly concerned with getting every tiny bit of material from between the lines. I want to be able to tell it's handcarved; otherwise, I'd just order a commercial stamp. I think any larger than this and it would have to be mounted on a wood or acrylic block.

Here it is stamped on blank watercolor paper. You can see that my watercolor paper is quite textured. :) The lines would be much more solid on a smoother paper.

This artist not only makes amazing stamps she gives a much better tutorial than I ever could.

http://blogdelanine.blogspot.com/search/label/handcarvedstampstutorial

So go forth! And carve! And stamp!