Follow Your Heart Hand Stamped Necklace | Stamping Round Blanks

Raise your hand if you love hand stamped necklaces! (Me! Me!) I’ve got a design to share with you today that’s pretty for a DIY Valentine’s Day gift, or great for yourself to wear anytime.  Get out your hammers and give today’s “Follow Your Heart” design a try!

If you’ve been reading here long, you know how much I LOVE metal stamping.  Today’s post is sponsored by my friends at ImpressArt, and I’m going to teach you MY tricks for stamping on round blanks.

I have a confession to make: this technique has always been difficult for me.  I stamped straight lines in most of my designs for a long time, because I wasn’t confident in my round alignment.  I ruined lots of blanks, haha.  But I’ve finally gotten my system down, and I’m going to tell you guys all about it today!

Here’s what you’ll need for this hand stamped necklace design:

• Steel Bench Block
• ImpressArt Ergo Angle Hammer
• Juniper 3mm font in upper case
• Stamp Enamel
• 15/16 SoftStrike Round Pewter Blank
• Chasing hammer
• 5/8″ Round Craft Punch
• Scrap of craft vinyl
• 18″ chain
• Jump ring
• 18 Gauge silver plated copper wire
• Round nose pliers
• Chain nose pliers
• Wire Cutters

Okay, so I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out, but instead of using stamp straight tape on round blanks, you can use a round craft punch on a scrap of vinyl or contact paper to achieve the same thing!  This blank is 15/16″ round, and I used a 5/8″ circle for the center.  That gives me a stamp-able area around the outside that’s about 4mm.  3mm font, like the upper case Juniper I’m using, will fit just right.  Note: whatever size round blank you are using, size down your vinyl by at least 1/4″ for small fonts, and up to 1/2″ for fonts up to 4mm.

There’s one thing I want to point out, though.  This won’t always work for lowercase letters, since some letters are taller than others, or have descenders that might go off the edge (like the letter g, j, y, etc.).  You can get around this by using the vinyl edge to align the bottom of your letters – but at the bottom, the words would look upside-down.  It works well, though, if you have a message that goes all the way around and you can align it at the top of the round blank.

So, stamp away!  Place your stamp vertically and hold it straight.  Gently drag the stamp upward to the edge of the vinyl.  When you feel the edge of the vinyl, you know you’ve got the proper vertical alignment.  Give each letter one firm tap with your hammer.

When you’re happy with your stamping, fill in the impressions with Stamp Enamel.  Wait ten seconds for it to dry, and gently wipe the excess away.

Next, you can create a sweet hammered wire heart charm!  I used approximately 2-3 inches of 18-gauge wire to form a heart using the steps pictured above.  To make small curves and circles, use the small end of your round pliers.  For larger curves like the top of the heart, use the largest part of your round pliers.

For texture and to harden my charm, I hammered it.  Flatten it first with the large end of a chasing hammer against your steel block, and then to add texture, use the round end to create small dents.

Finally, just assemble your necklace!  One large jump ring can connect both the blank and the charm together, and then string it on a 18″ chain.

What do you think?  DO you have plans to follow your heart more this year?

Note: As an ImpressArt blogger and brand ambassador, I occasionally receive free products to bring my ideas to life.  All opinions, experiences, and ideas in this post are my own.