You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.10

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s MarkPrintable pottery guide

Carve one, bisque it, and it works forever. A plug of clay with a handle and a flat face, carved backwards at leather hard, and three traps that are all facts.

$7.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 26 printable pages
  • 5 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any home printer
  • The full lesson stays free online
The printable, at a glance

What is the Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” lesson. A stamp is a plug of clay with a handle and a flat face, carved backwards at leather hard and bisque fired once. After that it is a tool you keep for good. The project has three traps in it and every one is a fact rather than a knack: the design has to be mirrored, the stamp has to be bisque fired, and the pot has to be at the right stage when you press. The guide runs the whole thing in six moves, from making the plug to where on a pot the mark should go so a glaze cannot fill it. On paper it adds a line for each of your first eight stamps, the whole stamp on one page, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 26printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 5hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 16glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

Three traps, and all three are facts

Whatever you carve prints reversed. For a texture that does not matter at all. For letters, initials or a logo it matters completely, and people find that out after the kiln, which is the expensive place to find it out. The fix is one line: flip the design before it touches clay.

The other two are the same shape. A stamp has to be bisque fired, or it softens on the first wet pot. And the pot has to be at soft leather hard when you press, because too wet distorts and too dry cracks. None of those is a skill. They are three facts, and facts are what a page is for.

It is also a two visit project: carve one night, bisque with the next load. A printed page remembers where you got to across a week in a way a browser tab does not.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table and a wine cork of clay

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.

  • Page 5 of the “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” printable guide: the whole technique in six moves, shown with the sample watermark
    The whole technique in six movesThe five minute version up front, with the places each move fails marked.
  • Page 7 of the “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” printable guide: draw it mirrored, then carve, shown with the sample watermark
    Draw it mirrored, then carveThe trap that costs people a stamp: flip it before it touches clay, then carve deep with vertical walls.
  • Page 13 of the “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” printable guide: six ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six ways it goes wrongA fuzzy print, a crescent, a ring, a stamp that sticks. Each with the cause and what to do.
  • Page 11 of the “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” printable guide: the first eight stamps, shown with the sample watermark
    The first eight stampsOne line per stamp: what it was, how deep you carved and how it actually printed.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

It is a two visit project with a kiln in the middle

You carve on one night and bisque with the next load, and in between the details are easy to lose. The things that matter are facts you can print rather than moves you rehearse.

  • Mirrored, in writing

    The single most expensive mistake in this project, and it is prevented by one line on a page you have in front of you while you draw.

  • Carve deep, carve simple

    Two millimeters with vertical walls. Bold beats fine, and a line too thin to print is found in a test scrap rather than on a pot.

  • The pressing window

    Soft leather hard, support the wall from inside, straight in and straight out. Three conditions, and all three on one page.

  • Eight stamps, logged

    How deep you carved and how it actually printed. That is how the third stamp is better than the first rather than just different.

How the guide is built

Built for a two visit project, not a four minute demonstration

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one, that means:

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what is on the table, the mistakes that get made first, and what leather hard feels like under a fingernail.

  • The whole technique in six moves, up front

    The five minute version before any detail, with the place each move fails marked.

  • The three traps, each given its own step

    Mirroring the design, bisque firing the stamp, and pressing at the right stage. Every one is a fact rather than a knack, which is exactly what paper is good at.

  • Testing before the kiln

    Press it into a scrap and read it. Backwards letters, a domed face or a line too fine all cost two minutes here and a pot later.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Five videos, five kinds of stamp, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A sixteen term glossary, written the way we would explain it sitting across the table from you.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Making Your Own Stamps and Maker’s Mark” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

A stamp is the cheapest tool you will ever make and you keep it for the rest of your life. Somebody’s initials pressed into the foot of every pot they make started as a wine cork of clay and twenty minutes. That should not cost anything to learn, so the lesson stays free.

The University is free and stays free. The guides are the version rebuilt for paper with an unreasonable amount of care, and buying one keeps the free side going.

Thank you. Genuinely.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
Collect them

Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 07.10, in the hand building section, alongside pinching, coiling and slab work. The number never changes and never gets reused, so a shelf of them stays in order.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

See every printable guide

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Where this leads

What to do once you have a mark of your own

These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.

Good questions

Before you buy

Is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is complete. The printable adds a line for each of your first eight stamps, the whole stamp on one page, a printed quiz with an answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need any special tools?
Six things, and one of them is a scrap of clay to test in. The tracing paper is the one that saves you a backwards stamp.
Why did my letters come out backwards?
Every stamp is a mirror. The guide gives the fix as its own step: draw it, trace it, turn the tracing over, and carve what you see through the paper.
Does the stamp have to be fired?
Yes, and the guide says why. An unfired stamp softens on the first wet pot. It also says how to dry a thick plug slowly so it survives the bisque.
When do I press it into the pot?
Soft leather hard, supporting the wall from inside, straight in and straight out. Too wet distorts the form and too dry cracks it.
Where should a maker’s mark go?
The bare foot, or the side with a wash wiped in or a glaze that breaks. The guide is clear that a thick glaze will fill a shallow mark and hide it.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes, more than most. It needs a table and two hands. The page about our own clay is marked as ours, and the studio numbers carry the date they were true.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is designed for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. Nothing depends on color, and we looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
Yes. Every QR code in the guide is also a tappable link, so on a screen you just tap instead of scanning.
How do I get it after I buy?
Right after checkout you get a download link by email and on your order confirmation page. Each link works up to seven times.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries a version number. When we correct or improve a guide, everyone who bought it gets an email with the new edition at no charge.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
Please don’t. It is licensed for your own personal use. Anyone can read the full lesson free online, and the printable is here if they want their own copy.

Print it, and go and carve a wine cork of clay

Roll a plug, flatten the face, let it go leather hard, and carve something bold and mirrored. Test it in a scrap before the kiln. Write down how deep you went and how it printed. By the third one you will have a mark you actually want on your work.

Get the printable · $7.00

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