Under the hot summer sun in Tokyo, I went to take my first Japanese eraser stamp carving lesson. My teacher is Goto-san. She is a kind and lovely lady with years of experiences in eraser stamp carving. She holds lesson with different topics each month. This time she taught us how to design our own pet bottle cover with our stamps.

We had a class of 5 students including myself, and each student was provided with a piece of eraser stamp, cutting mat, and some stamp illustrations drawn by Goto-san. To match the summer heat, Goto-san drew cute illustrations of fireworks, electric fan, piggies with bikini, goldfish, charm, cicada and shaved ice etc. We could pick the ones we like to carve from them. I chose to carve a squid, which is one of my favourite food.

It took me 45 minutes to carve these two stamps. When everyone finished carving, Goto-san showed us a white film which was particularly designed for pet bottle covers. We were given Staz-On ink pad this time, since this ink would not come out like other brands like VersaCraft. I didn’t do a great job in stamping on film as the surface was quite slippery. Goto-san also gave us her stamps with summer theme to add on the film. I chose the electric fan which was one of her latest works.

After stamping, Goto-san prepared a pot of hot water over 80 degrees celcius. She helped us to dip the pet bottle in the water, within 10 seconds the film shrank to fit the shape of the pet bottle. She then turned the bottle upside down to repeat the process. It was amazing to see! In addition, the ink held very well and didn’t come off when if I scratched it.

Stamping is lots of fun. I am glad to attend Goto-san’s class to learn another way of applying our stamps to daily lives. Looking forward to my next stamp class! ^^