i have a monogram

peter elliott's monogram — look at it :)

you may have seen it in the footer, or as this site's favicon.

background

as a kid i was always interested in authenticating documents. seals, stamps (postage and rubber), signatures, serial numbers, and eventually cryptography. as i got back into crafts as an adult, i figured it would be cool to have some kind of makers-mark to put on my stuff.

also, yes, my initials are P.E.E. my dad was unaware. my mom knew but didn't think it would be a problem.

designing the monogram

i first sketched out every arrangement of my initials i could think of:

all of my monogram ideas (and some other peoples)

pretty much finalized the design on paper, and then just tried to replicate it in inkscape.

stamps

in order to transfer my design to the stamps, i printed them on to wax paper double-sided-taped to a sheet of cardstock. I decided to try 3 sizes, ¼", ½" and 1".

my printed templates. i smudged it after making the stamp.

if i was doing it again, i would probably just use wax paper alone. making this sheet was a lot of work, and it didn't turn out to be reusable, as i'd hoped.

i then cut appropriate stamp blanks, and pressed them against the wet ink.

after transferring the ink to the stamp blanks

at this point, i realized that i had no hope of carving the ¼" stamp.

i then outlined the monograms with my xacto knife. this was a mistake and i should have started with a gouge. but i was still able to do a pretty satisfactory job.

not bad considering the size of gouge i used

i'm pretty happy with these but i'll probably try to make better ones at some point in the future.