When I went shopping recently, I happened to pass by a rack with a group of necklaces that had letters stamped into them, resulting in a look was sort of like engravings. The store had a bunch of different letters so that people could buy necklaces with their initials stamped on them, and I really liked the idea of a pendant stamped with my initials, name etc. (but I hated the rest of the necklace because it looked like it would break in the shopping bag on the way home). So, I decided to try and learn how to do metal stamping myself, and decided to start with stamping letters like the ones I saw at the store.There are a variety of metal stamps out there that have pictures and tons of other really cool designs on them, but I was set on learning how to do letters (which I now know is much harder than pictures or designs), so that is what I have been working on. The alphabet stamp sets come with each letter raised from the bottom of a steel post,

and you have to line them up perfectly to make sure the letters are straight, space them the exact same distance apart so they don’t get crowded in one area of a word and spread out in another, and also you have to hit them just at the right angle or they will move and come out looking like the letters are tipping over, etc. And, it’s really hard to line the stamps up perfectly straight, considering the bottom of the stamps are circles… (this seems like a ridiculous design defect to me, but who am I to say anything about the process of metal stamp making?)  But, after much practice, I think I’ve gotten the hang of it:

The metal blanks were made for jewelry, but I decided to turn this one into a dog tag for the furry little love of my life

Anyways, I will soon be taking orders for metal stamped jewelry with names and initials, and will be putting some pieces up on the lakeshore lavaliere online store within the week!

Don’t forget to follow lakeshore lavaliere here (by clicking follow on the right-hand side of the screen to follow by email and upper left if you have a blog!) and on Twitter and Pinterest for information about new items, tutorials, and of course, pictures!

For Inquiries/Requests/Custom Orders, Contact lakeshorelavaliere@gmail.com

or to check out the online store go to: etsy.com/shop/lakeshorelavaliere

Thanks for reading!