So….at convention, SU announced Undefined….a carve your own stamp line.  Shannon West demo’ed it and dang, her stuff was cute!  They even gave us a sample of rubber/foam/wood  so we could try it out ourselves.  Needless to say, with over 5,000 other demos, the carving area was a bit full.  I packed mine up and figured, I’ll try it at home.  But, I did get to see all the stamps the demos were carving and holy guacamole…they were cute!!
 
I came home and ordered my Undefined kit (it was on sale for us convention demos….yet another perk of going!)
 

This is the kit.  It sells for $19.95 and includes everything you need to create about 4 stamps.  You’ll get the rubber, 2 carving tools, foam, wood blocks, an indigo marker (so you can actually stamp your image right away!), an idea sampler and some note cards to stamp! 
 
The cool thing is…..if you love it….you can then purchase refill kits for only $9.95
 

 
 My kit arrived and I decided to give it a try.  I had envisioned my kids each carving their own personalized stamp with their name.  I asked Aidan what he wanted….and he drew me this:

Wow…ok.  It’s pretty detailed, but they made it look so easy at Convention (and if you get a chance, search Undefined on Pinterest…holy wow!  There are some awesome samples on there)  I had him trace it really dark in pencil.  Flipped it over and rubbed it on to the rubber to transfer the image and started carving.

About 1/2 way through and one carve to my thumb, I started thinking:  this looks awful, what a mess, this whole thing is ruined.  I can’t do this.  But, I kept going.

Finally, after 20 minutes or so, I was done.  And, honestly, it wasn’t hard.  It was my first attempt and I should’ve done something less “tricky” until I got the feel of carving.   I still thought I screwed it up, because….it’s not pretty.  We are used to seeing the beautiful images Stampin’ Up! makes…not this piece of rubber that looks like a tried to chew an image into it.  But….attached it to the block and stamped my first image…..

Well, look at that.  It’s not bad, if I do say so myself!  The one thing I did learn, was not to carve deep.  The tools cut that rubber like butter….and before you know it, it’s very easy to be too deep in the rubber.  Lessons learned and we are totally making more stamps!

I think it would be so cool to immortalize your kids hand printed (or cursive if you’re brave) name in a stamp….no matter how old they are!  Or create the logo of your favorite sports team…create one of a kind stamps for the back of your cards!  The images from convention included lots of minions and even one pile of poop with flies!  Maybe I need that for the farm! 

I know you want to try it too!!!!……so, I’m giving away an Undefined kit!!!  All you have to do is leave a comment here, on facebook or email me and you’ll be entered to win!  Drawing will be on Wednesday (August 14th) morning, so hurry and enter!  please make sure you’re commenting…all the facebook “likes,”  don’t count!!!!