If you'd like one, zap me a note (or reply here) with a link to the artwork, and the text you want. If you want specific framing on the artwork, let me know... or you can trust me to frame it.

Cost? Zero, zip, NADA. Just fave it.


Here's the ones I've cranked out so far:



and an update to my original Soul Train stamp:


And I suppose I should write a little how-to on doing these, since it's actually pretty simple.

First, you need a template. I'd suggest looking here: [link]

Now, you need an image editing program that supports layers. Otherwise this is going to be tricky as all get out. I use Paint.NET (cos it's free).

For stamps featuring artwork, I'd go with one with JUST the frame, no inner matting/coloring at all. For text-based stamps, go nuts. (If you don't see one with just a frame, you can make one by rectangle-selecting the inside pixels and deleting.)


So, first thing, open your template, and create two new layers. Your stamp frame is probably going to be labeled 'background' and be on the bottom, so move that to the top of the stack and rename it 'frame'.

You can save your template at this step, so's you don't have to keep doing this bit for every stamp.

The BOTTOM layer is going to be your Artwork layer. This is where you will paste and arrange the artwork you want to use.

The MIDDLE layer is for your text.

Now, open the artwork you want to use, and reduce it some by Resizing. These stamps are only a hundred pixels or so wide, so most artwork is gonna be HUGE compared to the stamp. If you want to zoom in on a specific section, that's cool, just don't reduce the art as much.

Next, Select All, and then Copy. Switch back to your stamp template, and select the Artwork layer. Paste.

You'll notice that the artwork probably needs to be panned around to 'frame' what you want inside the stamp frame. So do that.

If you didn't resize the original artwork right, undo your steps here until you see just the stamp frame again, then go back and undo/redo the resize. I say undo and then redo, because you'll lose mondo detail if you chain-resize an image repeatedly rather than just shrink the original once.

Now, once you have the artwork framed properly, use your Rectangle Select tool and select all the pixels INSIDE the stamp frame. You'll probably have to zoom in to do this. You don't want to select the stamp frame itself, just what's inside.

Invert the selection. This will select everything on the artwork layer except what's inside the frame. Delete. Now you don't have any artwork "bleed-over" under the stamp shadow.

Now, rectangle-select the outside of the stamp frame (including the shadow bits) and Crop to the selection.

That's the basic stamp. Now for Text.

Shift to the Text layer, and select a font that's very readable. You don't want the text to be too big, or it'll obscure the artwork - but if it's too small, it'll be unreadable. You can zoom back out to 100% View to see how the stamp looks at this point, if you like.

Once you have your text in place and arranged, then Merge all layers down to one, and save the file as a new stamp (Don't save it as your template file or you'll lose it!).

Upload to DA and show it off.